What would you do? I broke one top ring.

The dingle ball hone as you call it is only to be used for scratching a glazed cyl. not to power hone.

Don't care what ford did to save millions on rings. Once they are seated in one clocked position they will wear all over to seat in another,. How many times can a set of rings be seated with out affecting their longevity.

Cylinders are not the same wall thickness all the way around unless they are sleeved. I have had a lot of engines sonic tested. All small blocks I had sonic tested in the past had different thicknesses from side to side . -1 and -2 blocks are the better of all blocks. -6 and up are the worst. When the motor gets heat in it the cylinders will take different shapes. The rings will wear into this specific shape per cylinder and their clocking is specific to how they wore into the cylinder they were in. Change the clock and change the wear shape of the rings. A sleaved motor is more forgiving because the cylinder stays true when heated.

Guitar Jones said

Actually you can reuse the rings with low mileage like that as long as they go back in the same cylinder. I used to think you couldn't do it either but then when I worked at a Ford dealer they had problems with their straight sixes using oil because the ring end gaps were all lined up. There was a recall to pull the head and pop the pistons out of the cylinder and reclock the ring end gaps. Put it all back together and every thing was fine. That recall paid like 5.5 hours and I was doing them in 2.5 so it was good money.

I have since done it on my race motors if they had to come apart early for whatever reason. Now if you had 30K or so on it I'd have the machine shop hone it and put new rings in it. Those dingle ball hones aren't worth a crap.

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