Go Home, Pistons

Another one installed!

I got that damn flu that's going around, which messed up Valentine's Day and any semblance of progress on the Mustang last week. I hear cardinals twittering outside my window, which makes me feel like the early arrival of warmer weather is an early spring. It felt good to get back in the garage and back at it. Where were we? Ah yeah, installing some pistons. I was having some trouble, but with some new tools and coaxing, I got it squared away.

Are you too good for your home?!?

I'd never installed pistons before, so I went through some tools and techniques while I figured it out. Let's just say they didn't seem too inclined to go willingly. In the end, all went well once I got the right combination of tools, materials, and technique (which turned out to be "spring compression wrench/sleeve + loads of assembly lube + tap with a wooden handle"). Pretty happy with the result!

This went so good, I'm thinking about tomorrow, when I might just install the heads and/or the oil pump, depending on what strikes my fancy. But for now, enjoy some pics from today.

EDIT: While torquing down the connecting rod bolts on Sunday, I mistakenly looked up the torque specs for the Hi-Po 289, which has a much higher torque rating, and promptly twisted off one of the bolts on number 8. I have ordered new hardware, but I may need to disassemble the entire engine and send to the machine shop again (!), since it looks like putting in new hardware necessitates the need for ensuring the connecting rods/bearing openings are not out-of-round with the new hardware. *sigh* Well, I learned something anyway. 

Prepping one with some assembly lube

Give it a tappy!

That was a good one!

Bringing the piston home,

 

Crank all buttered up, connecting rod cap studs taped to prevent scratching

Pistons all done

And the bottom

Super Sunday

I'm such a degenerate car nut, I can't help but relate everything back to cars. So when I heard Panthers and Broncos, my mind kinda went here:

 

I've heard there is a big sports match or something happening today

.030 reported in the log, but...

So last week we were battling dirty pistons and got a surprise when we realized the engine was actually bored 40 thousandths over, not 30 like we thought. I had purchased the wrong piston rings based on my faulty understanding, so we paused the action, ordered the right parts and decided there were lessons to be learned here. So even though the car came with a journal of restoration pictures and descriptions containing an entry that had the description of the overbore, I never bothered to reconcile it with reality. The engine could have been redone again since then. The author could have heard it wrong. Assumptions made. Regardless of how the discrepancy occurred, the takeaway is that I should always measure the stuff for myself before starting. It's just sensible practice.

Before and after cleanup, 040 marking visible on right

Wait, groove goes down, pip goes up, or ??? Agh WTF instructions

Rings came in and we went right at installing them. We gave each piston one last scrub with a brass wire brush after soaking in degreaser for a week. I watched a few videos on YouTube, bought a set of ring pliers, drew some pictures of gap positions on the back of an envelope, and just kind of dove into it. We removed all the old compression, oil, and expander rings, then got to installing. I did pistons one-four, and Xavier did five-eight. We managed to install all of them, being careful to separate the ring gaps appropriately.
Since we were at it, we also installed new bearings on the connecting rods.

Xavier installs the expander and oil rings on #7

Preparing to install piston #1, didn't go well with that sleeve

The goal was to get all the pistons installed, but as luck would have it, the piston sleeve we bought doesn't seem to feel great when using it, and the pistons do not transition well from the sleeve to the bore. We didn't want to force things, since that might jack up the ring lands or otherwise damage things. So we backed off to check both our tools and our technique. Slow and steady wins the race?

More Pics from this weekend

Fat Tuesday is nigh! I'm polish! Paczki with piston for scale

Old bearings out, new bearings in.

Petrol head still-life

All the old connecting rod bearings - they look pretty scored and burnt

Random photo: pot of Super Bowl chili mmm :)

Gaggle of old rings, destined for the trash