How To Clean Ring Lands & Re-ring Pistons

Old ring is what I used. Little tape around the "handle."

AND NOW ANOTHER ANNOYING STORY from the old days

At NAS Miramar, my part time job at the auto hobby shop. Bear in mind I did not work there every day, nor did I work all day. so when guys had a lengthy project, I might only see them 1 or 2 days, and then a gap of maybe 4 days. I did not always "see what they did."

One day some guys, who were re-ringing an ?? engine, came over, "how hard should it turn?"

"What do you have?
"Short block V8 with six pistons installed"
"What are you using, how hard is it to turn?"

"Breaker bar and cheater, we can barely turn it"

You guys should already see this coming.......new rings in dirty grooves, 1 x 1, as the pistons were installed the thing just got more and more difficult to turn. By the tiime they got 4 or 5 on there you could barely turn it. The sixth one, you pretty much could "not."

"Easy fix" although I don't remember if they broke any of those brand new rings. This was 48 years ago!!!!