Stuck rings? Help!

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Oh well, it was only the tiniest chance that soaking would have solved your problem. How did it go so quickly from: "can't wait for the mystery oil to arrive" to: "all the piston rings are broken"?
Seeing as how the bottom end is in such good order, I think you should stump up the dosh and do the top end properly. At least then you will have a known good engine. Buying second-hand is a lottery, as your experience shows.
 
Thanks guys, just to recap. I now have both engines apart, the old one in a trailer and the new on in the Series. The block on the old one is probably a gonner, its blown 2 head gaskets in the same place and the liners are cracked at the same spot. It looks like there are burn marks on the top face so I'm not confident new liners would cure that. Intersting that the old engine has little wear on the liners but big cracks - 1" circumfrencial! but started and ran well. The "new" engine has very worn liners but no cracks. Its also only had one piston with a full set of rings and I think that its the one that fired when starting, it looks like a newer piston. Bottom end on the new engine is better. Pistons in the new engine are scrap - ring lands came out in bits but pistons from the old engine look good with good rings. I'm now between 2 options: 1 hone the bores (hone on order £17) to smooth the steps, fit new rings (£7.50 set) to the pistons from the old engine and back together with new big end shells (£20). It may run ok, - compression was over 200 psi with rings missing and lower limit is 300 so it may reach that. or 2, find somethere I can beg borrow or hire the sleeve puller, they are (£550 to buy) and pull the sleeves then new sleeves and pistons - whole set with shells is about £350. I'm going to ring round the local boat yards and see if anyone has one, preferabley with someone I can pay to use it! I'm OK about pulling the sleeves out but pressing the new ones in looks like it could go very wrong.
I think the engine was being started with ether and that did for the ring lands. I took it for a drive - epic blow by, and it stalled but hot restarted, and still got up to 50mph, and that is with at least 2 compression rings out on 3 cylinders and no rings lands on 2 pistons, so these a tolerant engines. Gmacz- I don't think the gaps will come up right, but with 3 compression rings and spaced at 180 it may work?
 
you'll die of old age before a honing tool will remove the lip at the top of a bore. but there is a more aggressive tool called a ridge reamer for that exact purpose.
 
rob1miles said:
Thanks guys, just to recap. I now have both engines apart, the old one in a trailer and the new on in the Series. The block on the old one is probably a gonner, its blown 2 head gaskets in the same place and the liners are cracked at the same spot. It looks like there are burn marks on the top face so I'm not confident new liners would cure that. Intersting that the old engine has little wear on the liners but big cracks - 1" circumfrencial! but started and ran well. The "new" engine has very worn liners but no cracks. Its also only had one piston with a full set of rings and I think that its the one that fired when starting, it looks like a newer piston. Bottom end on the new engine is better. Pistons in the new engine are scrap - ring lands came out in bits but pistons from the old engine look good with good rings. I'm now between 2 options: 1 hone the bores (hone on order £17) to smooth the steps, fit new rings (£7.50 set) to the pistons from the old engine and back together with new big end shells (£20). It may run ok, - compression was over 200 psi with rings missing and lower limit is 300 so it may reach that. or 2, find somethere I can beg borrow or hire the sleeve puller, they are (£550 to buy) and pull the sleeves then new sleeves and pistons - whole set with shells is about £350. I'm going to ring round the local boat yards and see if anyone has one, preferabley with someone I can pay to use it! I'm OK about pulling the sleeves out but pressing the new ones in looks like it could go very wrong.
I think the engine was being started with ether and that did for the ring lands. I took it for a drive - epic blow by, and it stalled but hot restarted, and still got up to 50mph, and that is with at least 2 compression rings out on 3 cylinders and no rings lands on 2 pistons, so these a tolerant engines. Gmacz- I don't think the gaps will come up right, but with 3 compression rings and spaced at 180 it may work?
Click to expand...
Apparently it is possible to remove dry liners by running a bead of weld down the length of the cylinder. The bead contracts the liner (so log as you haven't welded through) and then it can be tapped out of the block. I've always wanted to give this a go...

...I expect, however, it is one of those internet gems that sound easier than reality...

...things to remember when "just replacing liners" =>

1) Liners need to be machined after fitting - they should be machined to fit the pistons and rings
2) The deck of the block should / will probably need to be skimmed to make sure you've got a good seal for the head gasket
3) If you nadger the block trying to remove the liners (see daft attempts with cutting torches + welders (!) + chisels on yew toob) you have probably stuffed it up big time. A homogeneous fit needs to be present between liner and block - gaps from scratches and other damage will cause weird **** to happen inside the cylinder such as localised hot spots + uneven wear
4) You might have to re-bore the block before fitting the liners if you're unlucky - if you're really unlucky you won't have enough meat on the bone for that and the block will be toast.

########

I think you are better off taking the "good block" to a decent machine shop and asking them for a quote / a bit of advice.
 
Stretch said:
Apparently it is possible to remove dry liners by running a bead of weld down the length of the cylinder. The bead contracts the liner (so log as you haven't welded through) and then it can be tapped out of the block. I've always wanted to give this a go...

...I expect, however, it is one of those internet gems that sound easier than reality...

...things to remember when "just replacing liners" =>

1) Liners need to be machined after fitting - they should be machined to fit the pistons and rings
2) The deck of the block should / will probably need to be skimmed to make sure you've got a good seal for the head gasket
3) If you nadger the block trying to remove the liners (see daft attempts with cutting torches + welders (!) + chisels on yew toob) you have probably stuffed it up big time. A homogeneous fit needs to be present between liner and block - gaps from scratches and other damage will cause weird **** to happen inside the cylinder such as localised hot spots + uneven wear
4) You might have to re-bore the block before fitting the liners if you're unlucky - if you're really unlucky you won't have enough meat on the bone for that and the block will be toast.

########

I think you are better off taking the "good block" to a decent machine shop and asking them for a quote / a bit of advice.
Click to expand...
not all, perkins often used a dry liner that was finished and pulled or tapped in unlike press fit dry liner which is machined after fitting
 
The Perkins liners come ready sized with pistons - there is a "bore to fit" type as an option. 4 liners pistons all shells and gaskets are £350 so its quite tempting if I can get the liners in and out. I'm looking into where I can get the liner puller or may make one, I have the old block to practice on. I really really don't want to pull the engine, its an absolute pig: it took me a morning to get the head off, sump off and pistons out starting from scratch, whereas it took 2 of us 6 hours to get the engine in without the rad and front panel. What gets done gets done where it is! I agree about the time to hone off the ridges, I've been searching for ridge reamer hire with no joy and the cheapest I've found to buy is £65. I'm still hopiong a boat yard will have one.
Still if all else fails one option for now is cut up an old piston, drop it down the bore to catch the muck and hone for ages, could wrap the hones in emery. Thing is the head is nearly new, the crank looks good and it looks like the seals have been replaced so its only the liners/pistons that are the issue. I could use the pistons from the other engine for now (once I've got the worst of the ridges off) and it either works OK or I can drive it to a workshop for the sleeves to get changed.
Very temped to try the weld bead trick on the old engine, if I can master it then that's a problem solved. Despite the bother I'm very impressed with the Perkins, the bottom end is huge, no wonder the engine weighs over 1/4 ton.
 
jamesmartin said:
not all, perkins often used a dry liner that was finished and pulled or tapped in unlike press fit dry liner which is machined after fitting
Click to expand...
Always good to learn something new!

Do you know how to identify which type of liner is already fitted? Is there some kind of step / taper in the block to stop them from moving about?
 
for the 4203 the key is whether they are cast iron or chrome. Its easy to see and these are cast iron. The pistons and rings are different as is the top lip. They are only 0.001" interferance but they get stuck over time. That's why I'm tempeted to ream off the ridges for now and avoid what could be a fight to shift them. Its clear the big seller is the ready sized. The market for these is "in-frame" rebuilds in tractors, diggers and boats where the engine is rebuilt in situe. There are 100,000s in service all over the globe. The annoying thing is that if I was in India or Turkey I could get it all done while I waited as a local workshop. Mine is a "road" engine but the liners and pistons are the same as the industrial ones. Cranks and injection is different, revs higher and has a vacuum pump for servo.
 
I can't resist a gadget so I've ordered one of these:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Specialty...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649
Now I have to wait for a couple of weeks for it to arrive. Spent several hours on the phone today trying to locate one in the UK, found one for £107 plus vat in UK stock, there were some advertised as UK but on a 3 week delivery which suggests they were in the US. I'll tell you whether it works once I get my hands on it. Basic price was under £30, the post and duty put it up to just under £60.
now to build my "ridge-reamer hire website...."
 
Same shop, I looked at both, the postage plus costs and duty seem to total the same so I took a punt. Just been looking at the pistons carefully. 1 is nearly new and appears to have ridge dodger rings, odd becuase I can't find any. This cylinder looks to have been running ok. The other 3 have older pistons but with little wear, the problem is all the top rings were broken along with the 1st land. I now think it was rebuilt with new piston rings but the ridges were not taken off so it just trashed all the rings within a few miiles. Pity as they had put a new head on, shells and rings but fell over on this one step (pardon the pun).
 
rob1miles said:
Same shop, I looked at both, the postage plus costs and duty seem to total the same so I took a punt. Just been looking at the pistons carefully. 1 is nearly new and appears to have ridge dodger rings, odd becuase I can't find any. This cylinder looks to have been running ok. The other 3 have older pistons but with little wear, the problem is all the top rings were broken along with the 1st land. I now think it was rebuilt with new piston rings but the ridges were not taken off so it just trashed all the rings within a few miiles. Pity as they had put a new head on, shells and rings but fell over on this one step (pardon the pun).
Click to expand...
if its got a fair ridge bores are too worn
 
I can say with complete confidence that the bores are worn to excess, but as they are replaceable dry liners this is about getting it going for now. Its parked in the road and that's where it will get fixed so hand reaming the ridges and putting a used set of pistons in with new rings is doable and economic - I have the pistons and the rings are under £8 a set. Gaskets have arrived as has ring compressor and hone. Just waiting on reamer. Once its driveable I can plan for a re-sleeve with new pistons once I can borrow a garage to work in. Perkins manual is very clwear - absolute cleanliness for the re-sleeve as the tiniest bit of grit will cause a high spot on the cylinder. I suppost I could borrow one of those things the Police use to cover murder sites and work in that, problem is if I don't get it sorted soon I'll be the murder victim. Should I plan ahead and wear a body bag instead of overalls? I'd prefer not.
This kit:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MF-65-PER...IRECT-INJECTION-FLAT-TOP-PISTON-/401265461568
will bring it back to standard bore with as-new compression and oil consumption so with a set of shells (£18) and the new head it came with I'll have a new engine but that's a job for the summer. I don't fancy pulling the sleeves and dry-ice freezing the new ones out in the street.
Col - nice idea, I see where you are going, but there are ridges for the top 2 rings! What amazes me is that it ran and drove ok at all, what made it undrivable was the rate it pushed oil past the crank seals - about a pint a mile! Had I been thinking I'd have driven to a friend's garage not home, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Still some good has come out of this already, I got a nearly new rad for it for £10. If I master up-loading pics I'll post some of the pistons.
 
Thanks, well its turning out that way. The spare psitons didn't look very good so I made a tool for pulling the liners - took hours to make, in the end they came out really easily and the weather was OK. I'll order piston / liner sets Monday and a set of big end shells and nuts. Need to measure first as it looks like it may have been ground to -10. Decided to practice getting liners out on old block, big mistake as it had chrome steel liners when it should have had cast iron so they wouldn't budge but i wasted an hour finding that out. This explains why the head gasket kept blowing, the chrome liners sit too low in the std block. Keen to get it back together as its a race against time with the weather.
 
Update - ordered all the parts - pistons, rings, pins, liners and shells plus gaskets. I'd got the gaskets but you have to order the kit as a whole - £225 delivered which seems OK. Intersting is is all coming from Turkey, spoke at lenght to the UK agent, apparently Turkey has taken over a lot of the engine parts business with better quailty than the other "low cost" counties. I wanted to know what their warrenty return rates were on the shells and pistons, very low so I'm prepared to give it a go. Next job is to clear enough space in the freezer for 4 cylinder liners (with enough extra to conceal them behind some froxen food...)
 
Well the "I wrongly assumed it was stuck rings.." thread continues. Freezer space negotiated (high price paid), cylinder head being prepped to pass the time and I have yet to sort the best conrod set and check all the big end bolts and nuts. I'll anneal the copper combustion cap seals (A Perkins thing) but I have a serious question:
People who do this advise a light hone of the bare block to remove any highspots just before the sleeves go in. This must be followed by a spray of oil immediatly to stop rust. I'll be doing this outside with the crank in and I must keep everything clean and not contaminate the oil ways in the crank or the mains. My plan is to clean the crank and block then duck tape the journals and the gaps between the mains and block so nothing gets down on the crank. I'll then do one cylinder at a time. I'm thinking of getting some pipe cleaners and clenaing the oilways before I put the caps on too. Have I missed anything and any tips?
For info - "service sleeves" are a "transion fit" (+/- 0.001) so if luck is on my side hot water in the block and sleeves in the freezer should drop in. I'm not rushing into this,
 
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