Hack Weld Solder Sculpt: 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?