Any way this isn't a crack?

RustyRatRod said

If that was a crack, the piston, combustion chamber and valves would be clean as all hell from coolant getting into the cylinder. Also, cracks don't scrape off. It's not a crack.

My guess is, it has a broken ring and that's a carbon trail from the space in that ring. Seen it before.

Click to expand...

I'm not even sure there is a broken ring. The thing sat for quite some time and when the "stain" scraped off, I knew it wasn't a crack. However, this was spotted..

Any way this isn't a crack?

Which looks like a crack but like you and others pointed out, the carbon would have been steamed away. The theory I'm going off of now, is the imperfections in the link provided are a result of some past corrosion caused from this thing sitting somewhere for a very long time. The motor might actually be a low mile unit, the odometer indicates in the 60k region and that may very well be true based on the fact there is virtually no "ridge" at the top of the cylinder where the top ring stops. Once the carbon is cleaned up, you can't even catch a finger nail on it.

So, I'm going to pick up a head tonight after work and just go for it. If we get it running, reliably for a while, good deal. If not, then we'll need to locate another /6.

Thanks!