Piston rings

[Gordon]

Several years ago there was a company which sold piston rings, Otto if I remember correctly, but the owner retired and they went out of business. Has anyone else started selling these rings? My attempts at making my own rings has given me very erratic results.

 

[Dr Jo]

Gordon what is the problem you are getting making rings? They are easy peasy to make:

Turn a ring in CI to the required size. Scratch the inside with the boring bar on the way out to give a line on the inside for breaking. Clamp the top of the ring in a small vice with that line just outside the jaws and using a pair of pliers gently wobble too and fro to break the ring.

Spring the snap in the ci round a piece of steel to form a gap then take the lot off to the propane torch. Hang the ring from the piece of steel in your furnace (with other bits of metal behind to reflect any heat back at the ring) and gently heat until the ring is red hot: No rush do it slowly. When it falls off the steel go and have a cuppa while the ring cools. One ring down :thumbup:

If it is too springy make the gap smaller or the ring slightly thinner.

Jo

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Jo---If it was only that easy---I have tried a number of times to make cast iron rings, and never had satisfactory results. that is why I run Viton rings in all of my i.c. engines.---Brian

 

[Dr Jo]

How do you make yours Brian?

Jo

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Same way you suggested.

 

[Gordon]

I have tried that method and they seem to be OK but I seem to having a problem with seating.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

That was my issue--never being able to get the rings to seat properly. I ran them in dry, I ran them in with lubrication, I tried not running them in at all, nothing worked. I simply couldn't get good enough compression to get the engines to fire.

 

[Blogwitch]

Dale Detrich did a good write up for making rings, including oil control one as well.

http://www.floridaame.org/GalleryPages/2009/Dale/Rings.htm

or the late Bob Shores describes how he did them, down a little on this page.

http://www.floridaame.org/HowTo.htm

Hope this helps

John