Technical Re-Ring it and send it?

To be honest with you, I don't know what I'm going to do with the car. Maybe I'll sell it. Maybe I'll keep it. I waver on that issue all the time. I've owned the car for over 21 years. Got it the day of my senior prom. It's been a crazy journey with this car. I learned how to work on cars on it. It went from daily driver, to beater, to magazine cover car and award winner, back to driver, and then I got into a minor fender bender with it about 4 years ago, and I've barely driven it since. Every once in a while I'll go out in the garage and start it, and that's about it.

Here it is in some better times.


Fact of the matter is that now I own better cars and this is sort of a redundancy in my collection. Whether I keep it or sell it, or even trade it, I don't want the engine to leak or smoke. I have a couple other mechanical issues to square away, too. The idler on the center link is toast. The Santa Maria had more responsive steering. I need to reinstall the sway bay. And I need to****emble 1 good fender out of the 3 I have. Once my '61 Super 88 leaves for body and paint in a few weeks, I can bring this one up in the shop.

Lots of great insight on this thread, and I really appreciate the thoughtful responses.

 

After 21 years, give the respect she deserves, she’s too pretty to wear make up.

 

I follow JAMSI on Instagram, and I'll be honest, I have no idea how engine machine shops are able to offer their services at the prices they offer. When I think about the overhead in terms of shop space and price of the equipment needed, their prices seem like a bargain to me. And I totally understand the thought process behind simply replacing rather than repairing.

 

That style of rebuild suits my attention span of car ownership.
If the engine is not knocking , don't knurl the pistons .

I wouldn't even hone the bore If I could get Repco "Protec" rebuilder rings. [Protec rings have a rebate groove in the top ring so it doesn't kiss the lip in the bore]


Do the valve seals, timing chain and brass freeze plugs.

Sometimes the lack of mechanical sympathy goes a long way
It's amazing what degreaser, paint, brass freeze plugs, and new gaskets can do for an engine

 

I did one like that several years ago. Ran a tri bar hone because the ridge wasn't bad, cast iron rings and used a center punch to "knurl" the skirts. cast Iron rings, new bearings. big umbrella seals that barely fit inside the valve springs. Cleaned the carbon off of head, pistons. That engine is still running and running well. That was done while I was in high school around 1982.

 

Glad to see your 57. I’ve read your posts for years and wondered from time to time what the FoMoPar looked like, really cool ride, get it back on the road!

I’m in a similar situation, I’ve had my dad’s 38 Chevy for 17 years, and he had it since 71. It’s needs a lot of work but I’m getting ready to tear into it.

 

Get the $275 re-ring set that has all the gaskets and valve seals. Get a new timing chain while you're in there. Hone the cylinder walls, hand lap the valves. New bearings, rings, valve seals, gaskets and run it like you stole it.

 

Of course it can be a workable solution depending on the condition of the engine. Once you get it apart, you'll see exactly what it needs. And it might likely need more than you anticipate.

Don't forget about or discount the possibility of locating a good, relatively low mileage engine as a replacement. Could save you a lot of work. Just need to hear it run good before you buy it.

Watch the ads for a '70s Dodge motorhome with 30,000 to 40,000 miles on it. Should be able to get a good engine for $500 or so.

Good luck!

 

I've done a few ''quickie'' re-ring jobs, some for myself, some for friends..
I go for a ''max'' of .012'' bore wear, de-ridged the bore and hone, re-ringed the pistons (some we fitted ring spacers on the top groove) and new bearings.
A few engines we did the heads (valve grind, seals etc), a few others, the heads were put back on as they came off..
One word of advice....
A neighbour wanted a valve grind and new rings fitted to his OT vehicle..
I recomended new bearings as well, but he was insistent, NO BEARINGS.. Long story short, about a month later the bigend bearings had gone out in protest due to the extra compression..

 

This is great advice. I can grab a Fowler bore gauge off of Amazon for like $150 and get a much better idea of what I'm working with in terms of bore wear and taper. I'm almost always amenable to spending on tooling, and that should take some the guesswork out of it.

I really appreciate the comments and insights, and I'm glad to hear that provided the engine isn't worn too badly, that a basic freshening is a viable option. Of course I know that a complete tear down and machining is the "right" way to do it. But getting 30-40K miles out of the engine with a simple rering with less blowby and oil consumption is a perfectly acceptable result, especially since it's usage would be split now.

This was always a fun car though, and honestly a completely trouble-free car, too once I stopped kicking its****. The kind of car where you'd check your oil, make sure you had it, and go for a several hundred mile drive without hesitation.

 

I've successfully run old bearings many times...but I inspect them first, and if they're worn out, I replace them. You can replace them automatically, or you can determine if they need to be replaced. They're not very expensive for common engines, but they can be pricy for some engines, so knowing how to tell if they're still good is a valuable skill.

Oh...if it's never been apart, or was rebored and not re-ringed since, you can get a pretty good idea of the wear in the bores by looking at the ridge. If you can just feel a slight ridge, then it's probably a few thousandths wear. If you can catch your fingernail on it, more like .010" or so....

 

Perhaps buy a snap gauge and a mic to measure the bore and pistons if you do not have them


I have run a lot worse .....

I have the original 352 in my 65 F100 that all the top rings were broken, 5 of the second rings were broken, over 300,000 miles on the mill

I needed to move the truck around so rebuilt it with cast rings and new inserts until I had time to build a new mill

8 cylinders had the top ridge so deep, a ridge reamer hit ridge edge, has to use a rat tail file to cut the ridge to use the reamer

5 of the cylinders had a ridge as well, cut them out with the ridge reamer, block is probably .030 over and oval.. lol

Honed with ball hone and water, put back together and it ran so well I am still driving it 25 years later and over 40,000 miles

The main and rod journals are stock, the inserts were down to copper and steel, the journals looked like they were polished with a rough file

30 pounds oil at idle hot, 60 pounds running ( I put a thick washer in the original oil pump to bump up the pressure )
..........
Have a .40 over 390 block, 428 crank, pistons an such.... waiting to be put together one day ....

Ricky.

 

If you're doing bearings too, the engine will probably be out of the car, on a stand which means the block will be stripped bare. Perfect time to run it down to the machine shop and mic the cylinders with a bore gauge. Then you'll know for sure where you stand! I just did this on an SBF. Threw the bare block in the back of my truck and took it to the machine shop. Guy came out and mic'd each bore in 3 places in the bed of my truck. Didn't charge me a dime! Turns out the worst cylinder was .005 out-of-round. I dingle-balled all 8, slapped in rings and bearings and it runs like a top. Not a wisp of smoke.

 

A rear main leak will give everyone riding in the car that "oil small" and will provide a lot of smoke as it rolls off the bellhousing and onto the exhaust to burn. It will also increase the oil consumption very quickly. All of your issues could be that rear main leak.

If you proceeded with the ring & bearing job, unless there is a very deep ring ridge I wouldn't put too much concern into it. The 3 blade hone will cut the ridge back down and true up the cylinder walls quite a bit. Rod and main bearings as needed.
I would replace the valve seals on that Mopar motor, and replace the timing chain & gears, if they are original, they are junk by now. the plastic cam gear is self destructing. Make sure you get all the plastic out of the oil pump pickup.
Most of the time, the bathtub intake gasket doesn't come with the rebuild kits. Replace that bathtub gasket, they didn't seal that well to start with. They had a habit of*****ing oil up from the valley under the tub and into the bottom of the intake ports. It was the cause of 90% of the oil smoke and the primary reason for a quart of oil every 500 mile consumption on those big block Mopars.
I'd also replace all the core plugs while the motor was out of the car.
Unless the ridge was huge, or the crank was grooved, the "new" motor is good for another 50-75K miles.

 

Company of choice?

 

"Re-Ring it"...that's about as traditional as it gets, right there with using old license plates for patching floor boards.
As hobbyist in this traditional hobby considerations of time, expense, skill level dictate our "builds".
Now with the internet, TV shows (with the high end builds, and no budget restraints), leave many with the idea that there is only one choice when "building" a car...that is mimicking what is seen, even though there may not be the budget, or skill level to accomplish it.
There are many unfinished "project" cars for sale, reality comes into play...car is sent down the road.
Back in the day, people did what it takes to keep things running/working, it still exists today for some, and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

I have put rings and rod bearings in some big and small block Mopars in my life time while still in the car. I am sure I am not the only one. The more you disassemble the more chance for something to go wrong.

 

GM 305 in my daily. Tired (mostly a stinky exhaust, minimal smoke) but absolutely no knock. I dingle-balled it, cleaned the pistons (including the skirts) along with rings, bearings (including cam bearings), timing chain etc ... and ended up with piston slap/rock. Did I hone too much? Maybe, but the hone instructions actually say it only cleans the bore, it doesn't remove metal . Should I have cleaned the skirts? Apparently not as I now believe that film on the piston helped take up clearance. Would knurling have solved the knock? I can't say for sure because I retired that engine (threw it out) and replaced it with a 350 with much less bore wear BUT, I have been told (after the fact) that knurling would have solved the knocking issue.

I'd say, if there is a heck of a ridge and a bore/hone and new pistons just isn't in the budget ... look into knurling, ask around, get opinions from several sources because it may have allowed me to get a good number of miles on that engine instead of the dumpster death I gave it

The replacement 350? Minimal bore wear so I once again did the dingle-ball hone, new rings, bearings, etc etc and that engine does not knock and continues to run great, year after year, in my daily. Only reason I chose the 305 first was because it was original to the car so I wanted to keep it in the car for emission control reasons due to the laws in my area.

 

What the hey? Dingle ball? I had no stinking "dingle ball". Just a sheet or two of wet or dry , wrapped around my fist, to " bust the glaze!".

Ben

 

When I was younger, I used a different body part. Uhummn, yes it was a tight fit, but I persevered

 

We use to sell Hasting rings in my parts store back in the day an called them rebore in a box.

 

Just a WAG as the original poster stated he could get a re-ring kit for $250. Valve seals shouldn't bump the price any more than $25 and he didn't include them in the OP.

 

Falcon Global lists the re-ring kit for the 1965 B 383 for $228 and free shipping. Figure a few ancillary expenses on top of that as well while I'm in there. Freeze plugs, maybe a new valley pan, etc. You generally get some combination of name brand parts from them, Clevite, Sealed Power, Mahle, and so on. Whether the parts come to $250 or $350 is no factor, I'm not trying to pinch pennies that hard. What I'm trying to avoid is a $5000 rebuild with full machine work and new pistons.

 

You’ll know more when you tear the engine down. If the crank rods and pistons are fair to good no major scoring on the cylinder walls etc should be ok with new rings and bearings most Machine shops will mic your cylinders and crank for little or no $s not sure what the allowable wear is on a mopar 383 is, a shop manual will have those specs or the machine will know, usually anything more than .005 taper is to much. If the cylinder has too much taper or wear the chances of breaking a ring are increased also harder for rings to seat. If everything looks ok install ring, bearings and gaskets and run it. I’ve done the new rings etc (no machine work) a couple times with good luck once with performance parts cam carb etc. presently I’m rebuilding a engine milled head decked block valve job No crank or rod work needed thankfully but am at the $2000 mark and not finished yet. A full build blue printed if you will is the best way to go but costs $$$$$s

 

I've used these guys a couple of times. Great prices, quality name brand products and lots of options for upgrades. Just bought their re-ring kit for my SBF and was all in for $700 which included $450 in head work!
https://www.northernautoparts.com/part/ek-er0214

 

Back in the early 70's I bought the 38 Chevy in my Avatar as a basket cases that came with a early 350 SBC. Everything that I knew about engine building came from Hot Rod Magazine.....when I blew the engine apart some of the rings had been installed wrong and there was quite a ring ridge. I bought a ring ridge cutter and hone and cleaned it up. There had to be lots of taper. I used the heads and crank that came with it (took 'em to a shop and had them ground...hopefully they checked for stem wear)****embled it and put 20K miles on it and then stopped driving it (a long story of marital strife It spun 7K more than once and I don't remember it taking oil, or if it did it wasn't much, it was a daily driver back then.
That's my story and I am sticking to it!

 

There's a set of rings on ebay right now, not sure if it's the correct set for your engine, but this is the kind of rings I love to use when doing an old fashioned ring job.

 

The owner of Northern was a member on the board here at one time as well.

 

I've got to admit that I've never heard of anyone using water with any kind of hone to refinish a cylinder wall. Was that the recommendation for using the plain cast rings instead of something with a moly or chrome face? I guess I could see that being the case to help the cast rings seat more quickly. At one time at least there were even high-tension or "severe duty" cast ring sets available for some engines to promote quicker break-in of the rings for these kind of repairs.