Thread: Piston replacement

Originally Posted by Reptile

I wouldn't recommend reusing the bearings and the rod bolts....I'd even say put new rings on the piston.

yeah im sure he wants to hone a bore with the engine in car and assembled.
reusing the bearings is fine, at most id be leery of the rod bolts...but just cause a manufacturer uses a TTY bolt doesnt mean that its hit its yield point....simple inspection can find stretched threads, etc. the feel of the fastener during tightening is good feedback as you may hit the yield.

ive reused cam bolts (funny how a non necked down bolt uses tty fastener tightening...yet its not a yieldable fastener) flexplate bolts, rocker bolts. very few actually yield even the second time being tightened.

the whippled Riv's L32 shorty is using the original bearings and rod bolts (none yielded) and has over 15k miles and plenty of WOT pulls

Originally Posted by SnowTh1ef

think i should put new bearings on just the one rod with new bolts? and new rings?

not unless you see bearing wear...ive seen the oem aluminum bearings at 160k with barely a shiny spot...these arent the same soft bearings as the old trimetals. i wouldnt use the bearing from the rod knocking motor but chances are the chipped piston bearings are fine unless you had repeated and prolonged detonation...inb which case youll see the bearing shell curl inward from the hammering.

the new bolts i wouldnt worry about, chances are youll have no problem tqing the oem bolts, and if one yields and gets easy to turn near the terminal Tq, you have 12 spares on the stand next to it.

as for the rings, just reuse the ones from that bore taking note of the gap positions for reinstallation.

all youd have to do is lay the top and second rings next to each other to determine if the top ring may have warped at the missing ring land...if it has just use the top ring from the junk motor and scuff the ring's bore face lightly with coarse sand paper to give area for oil reservoirs as the ring wears to the new motor that wears in nearly the same manner in all bores. which is quite bad but thats due to the high rod angularity.

normally i wouldnt suggest this path over a new jy shorty but any asshole that tackles a rwd l67 swap into a "hey lets put the motor under the ****ing dashboard" 3800 car can probably tighten bolts properly and keep his tools and parts/workarea clean enough to pull off this repair.

make sure you clean the inside of the sockets, its amazing how many people forget that clean tools are important as much as the work area/parts, steal the sink utensils, yer old lady probably wants new ones anyways.

bucket of kerosene and cans of brake cleaner