302 Cylinder Wall Questions

I've pulled the heads off of my 302 engine to clean all the dust and***** from my coupe build. I've noticed at the top 1/4" or so of each cylinder wall is a tiny ridge or ring. Is that normal?



Also the top of the pisons appears to "pitted". Again, is that normal or should I be concerned?


I appreciate the input.

 

The rigde on top of the cylinders is normal wear from the pistonrings on engines with a lot of miles on them. The pitting on the pistons may be from the casting or from the engine standing still for longer periods? Lisle tools has a ridge reamer for cutting of the wear ridge but i would not recommend it for a high output build as the cylinderwalls will stay wider in the upper half.

 

The ridge is normal for high mileage cars. If you are removing the pistons, you would want to cut down the ring with a ridge reamer. You may or may not need to remove the pistons. Did the engine use oil? How was the compression? If you don't know those things, then you could check the cylinder bore in each direction at top, middle, and bottom of piston travel, and decide if you are within spec or not. Then you can decide whether to mess with the pistons and rings.

I will say that the upper edge of the cylinder in the first pic looks a little nasty. Is that just surface rust? If you wipe it off, can you feel anything with your fingertip? Might be trouble.

Pitting on the pistons is probably corrosion from sitting ... or could possibly be from detonation. But hard to tell, especially not knowing the engine's history.

 

Ditto, #2; My new flathead pistons had a few "pits", and it runs just great. The "ridge reamer" tool is for use before disassembling the engine, in order to prevent breaking the piston rings, and /or damaging the ring lands on the pistons.

4TTRUK

 

Thanks fellas. The engine has been sitting (not started) for at least 3yrs so I guess that's to be expected. I'm not sure on the mileage on the engine. I'd rather not pull the pistons if I didn't have to. I barely know what I'm doing to begin with.
I'll just clean what I can and replace the gaskets.

 

That pitting is likley from running it without an air filter. Rings are probably toasted.

 

Make sure to put the head gaskets on correctly or you will have a heating issue. The big cooling hole in the gasket on the edge goes to the back of the block on both sides.

 

Gotcha, I actually followed the instructions.
Thanks.

 

The ridge is normal wear. I also see marks in the cylinders where the rings have rusted to the cylinder walls several times. The motor must have been stored in damp conditions for long periods. I don't like the fretting at the top of the cylinders either. The pitting on top of the cylinders means nothing, it is probably due to corrosion while sitting in storage.

As long as it runs good and doesn't burn oil don't worry about it. But next time you store it for the winter oil the cylinders and seal the intake and exhaust as well as you can.

 

The majority of your ridge is probably a carbon build up, I wouldn't worry about the pits in the pistons either. Looks like heavy oxidation from sitting around. Oil up the cylinders before you put the heads back on and run the piss out of it.

Bob

 

Normal wear and tear

 

Based on what I can see in the pics; either run it as is, of plan on boring it. Honing what you have and installing new rings is not a good solution for those bores.