In car re-ring job

[Mr. Belvedere]

Has anybody else besides dodgepu1946, put in new rings in the engine while still in the car with any success? If so give details, Thanks.

[Normspeed]

I haven't done the job, but one tip is, working under the car will be really dirty and gritty so you'd need to take extra care to not mix outside dirt with inside parts like the crankshaft journals.

You live fairly close to me, if you decide to tackle that one I have a cylinder hone and ring compressor you can use. As an added bonus you get to have me look over your shoulder while drinking your beer and making important technical statements like "Yep you sure broke that bolt off flush!":D

[Mr. Belvedere]

Thanks Norm, may take you up on that, did you have good weekend at the lake?

[Plymouthy Adams]

This I have help do on a number of ocassion in SC...very common and easy to do to small V8 engines...never tried it on a one of these..but hey...probably be a bit easier in the long run. This is great for when you have a tired engine due to bad valve train and mininum cylinder wear...you do lave limitation on taper with dtock rings...cutting the ridge..honing to seal the rings..good Moly rings or basic cast irons only here...quick valve job, new inserts, timing chaing and gear, new oil pump and water pump..quick tune up and down athe road you go....I have seen a lot of engines fail in the bottom end after bring up the compression on the to end without attention to new inserts...

[Phil Martin]

As long as you can get the pan off it,s easy. You can loosen bearings and remove a cap and slide the old out off the crank put new in the same way. If you have access to valve grinder you can do the valves too. Take caps off pistons and push them up from below. Put on ring compressor and tap them down in clyinders. Be careful not to scratch journals with the rod bolts. I have done this several times.

[RALPHDEI]

When I was young I helped my Uncle (mechanic) do in car ring and valve jobs, very common back in the 50s and before. 40,000 miles on an engine was alot, now a days engines arn't even broken in at that milage. If the piston comes out without cutting the ridge you probably can get away with a incar job. He sometimes had the pistons knurled (expanded) and used an over ring. He did always measure for roundness and taper prior to making the incar desicion. I think if your going to keep the car bite the bullit and pull the engine,and go through it stem to stern. RJD

[55 Fargo]

I concur on the "engine pull", just pulled the trans, clutch,bell housing, and flywheel incar, it went okay, but it is a dirtier job like this. If you are going to this lenght, don't be hasty, get an engine lift, beg borrow,rent, and get help and pull her out. This way you can clean the engine, paint it, replace gaskets and seals, have a look at the flywheel, and flush out block if needed and it's probably needed. But heck it's your car, do what you think is best and go for it. I was told by some to pull the engine on my car in this recent job, I didn't probably may have been better, but it's pretty well done now, so water over the dam.............Rock

[grey beard]

Thsi past winter I rebuilt the engine in my B1B pickup while in the frame. It is not difficult to do, and at least in a pickup, The pan comess right off with no sweat whatsoever.

Here's what you will need to do: First, pull your head and look at the ridge inside the tops of each cylinder wall. If it is very thick, this means that there is a lot of wear on your cylinder walls, and you can stop right there. The top of the ridge is the original cylinder size before the wear began. Only if there is just a slight ridge or no ridge at all, can the engine be successfully rebuilt in the frame.

Next, pull out all the pistons. Do this one at a time and carefully. After you drop one rod cap, slide two pieces of vacuum hose onto the rod cap bolts to protect the crankshaft while you tap the piston assemblies out the top wirth a hammer handle. Failure to do this will likely score your crank journals, which are highly polished. After each piston is removed, put the cap for it back on. Never have more tnan one cap off at a time - if you mix them up, things will not work out very well in the bearing department. The two bearing notches in he cap and rod must be on the same side.

Once the six pistons are removed, either rent or buy a cylinder bore gauge and carefully measure the amount of taper in each cylinder. Greatest wear is always just below the ring ridge, at the top of the cylinder. The wear at this point must be compared to the original cylinder size you will find down at the lowest part or each cylinder. More taper than 0/00- thousandths of an inch is not advisable to re-ring. I have rung old tractor engines with 12 thou taper, but these were only used for parading, anyhow, and never did any real work again.

This is the issue you must learn to determine if you can logically rebuild the engine in the frame. If the cylinders are still within this spec, go ahead and do the job. You can easily clean out every water and oil passaage in the block with compresed air and water, using brushes and some ingenuity. The most difficult part of the block to clean properly are the valve chambers, and they are ususally filthy. Do plan to replace every block core plug and the water distribution tube, while you're in there doing the job. Get it clean!

Down side of rebuilding in the frame is that it is easier with the nose off. That is how I did mine. Removing the block and having it cleaned is also nice, but requires replacement of cam bearings - likely $50 parts and labor in addition to the cleaning, etc. Otherwise, you can do the same quality job either way. If your block is okay, I say go for it. Mine runs very well and I am pleased with the job I did.

By the bye, semi trucks routinely have in-frame major overhauls done- not unusual or shabby approach at all, especkally if you can get the nose off so you can work on things easily.

[Mr. Belvedere]

Nope I was planning on doing them all, but more than likely I'll end up doing a full rebuild because I have a feeling this is just an old worn out high mileage engine that most likely has alot of cylinder wall wear. But I may pull the head and look just for fun anyway maybe it will not be as bad as I think. Yeah right!

[1949P17BC]

I put rings, bearings and re did the valves in my 49 p17 this way. My car showed 71,852. on the odometer, and we got very lucky in that the cylinders where not worn or oblong, no broken pistons or rings. What I did to minimize the mess was to completely power wash the motor, front end and engine compartment. The upside to freshen up motor, much quicker and less expensive, the down side is you don;t freshen up all of the parts. My car runs great, solid oil pressure, runs cool and no smoke Planning on driving it to Concord for the POC meet.