a couple pistons had some scoreing like this. this is probably the worst of all.



more scoreing



im told the brown discoloration is from blow-by. true?



well this is weird! this is the only damage i could find. a small crack that looks like it has been there for a long time becasue there is a heavy worn spot just to the left of the crack. its very obvious when looking at it. sorry for the shitty pic, i have a shitty camera.



more scoreing.


i was told my oil rings were toast and that they were not making a tight contact with the cylinder wall.

okay any ideas now?

Normal. All normal.

Take the rings off already. Catch the pieces that fall off.

Originally posted by DarkOne
Normal. All normal. Take the rings off already. Catch the pieces that fall off.

Yes, do it already! :)

My (JE) piston skirts looked like that when I took them out... I think at least the sideskirt wear is normal piston slap.

Not so sure about the crack and the brown skirts... My JE skirts were still perfectly shiny after 10k miles. :wary

Okay, all rings off!! no falling parts, chunks or anything!!! what the hell gives?

That ware on the sides is where the piston applies the most force when moving up and down. That is why after a long time your piston bore or sleeves will look like an oval. Nothing looks bad to me :shrug Just a little ware on the piston skirts.

If you can, get some really up close pics of the piston that was low on compression. Try to focus on the ring lands of the piston. If its cracked at all, I can tell. Maybe take a screwdriver or other tool to run along the ring grove and see if any pieces of metal fall out..

That doesn't look normal to me. As many high mileage engines I've built most of them didn't have scoaring that bad. Then again I haven't built a 420a yet, so maybe its normal for it?






I got the sonic if you got the boom.

Looks a little excessive to me, especially with the cracking. Seem like too much piston slap, piston to bore clearance a little too much.

Could you hear her slapping?



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i wouldn't really know what it sounded like to know.

Piston slap sounds like a Volvo or old Diesel truck... in the morning especially.

Here's a pic of my destroyed JE:


Note the wear and slight scratches from the pieces of ring and block that were floating around. More importantly, note there is ZERO blowby past the second ring (brown areas) and the skirts are clean (there is oil on them in the pics, but when wiped, they were bright silver). There were about 5k miles on this piston.

^^^ That piston came out of this cylinder vvv :+


I think that your problems were caused from blowby. Either your bore was off, the pistons were the wrong size, or the rings weren't working. Use a caliper and see if your pistons are .020 over? How about the bore? It should be 3.464 I think.

Howell accidentally sent me standard size rings with a .020 overbore rebuild kit. (Yes, I returned them and got the right rings before I assembled the engine.) I was all confused because my ring gaps were HUGE. If you have the old rings, put a couple of them in your cylinders and measure the gap with a feeler gauge.

omg^^ brinneling much

other than that diesel sound, would there be any other indications? (i have a noise that sounds kinda like a diesel and i'm gettin kinda scared now. i'm a car hypochondriac)

first, calm down. second, look around for any nearby diesel pickups. :thumbsup

On my last broken one you couldn't even see the crack. I pried on it a bit with a flat screwdriver and it just fell off.

my cylinder walls look emaculate, i can see nothing that looks out of place.
ill see if i can pry a bit more. i was told the rings (oil especialy) were a bit lax in their tension and didnt stick out as far as they are supposed to.

these are the factory parts too

Originally posted by thedawg
More importantly, note there is ZERO blowby past the second ring (brown areas) and the skirts are clean (there is oil on them in the pics, but when wiped, they were bright silver

Dude, stock pistons look like that. I have 6 of them sitting at home, they all have oil staining on them. it has little to do with age or condition, and a lot to do with the porosity of the metal, and the heat over a long term engine life. JE's will eventually darken with time, but nothing like a stock cast item.

well, i was checking it out today because i was under the hood (my power cable for my amp became disconnected) and it turns out that the dieseling sound is coming from the piston #4 area but my ears aren't that good anymore so it might be coming from a little further down towards the transmission.

are you saying those are stock internals that he posted all the pics of?

yes those are stock pistons and rods.