Ridge in the cylinder, 2200tc.

Vidal

Member
Hi, we have got the head off my 2200TC and there is a bit of a ridge at the top where the piston stops. Some of this is carbon build up but not all and. Is this too much of a problem? The mileage is unknown. The rest of the engine looks in great condition. What would be your advice be on the rebuild. Can the 2200 take a rebore if the worst came to the worst? That would have to be a last resort on my very budget rebuild.
Thanks Steve.
 
Measure the ridge with a bore gauge and if less than 6 thou, then re ring. Otherwise rebore it. I would have to check specs on the 2200 motor but I think you can go up to 40 thou oversize.
Do you have a ridge reamer? Remove the ridge prior to removing the pistons. Otherwise you may damage the pistons.
Inspect the pistons prior to ordering rings. If they are damaged then make sure you can buy the same size pistons to replace them. Otherwise you might have to bore oversize to accept pistons that are available. Some pistons come with rings and some do not. Keep this in mind. There are some piston and ring kits on ebay right now.
If you buy rings you will need to measure the gap and adjust with a ring file, to about 16 - 18 thou I think it is. Then install on the pistons. Replacement rings will have more metal in them than the original rings, to allow for some bore wear. That is why you need to file them a bit.
Make sure you have a set of ring compressors, and I would get some ring opening pliers as well. While you are in there replace the big end (conrod) and main bearings. You can do that with the motor in the car if you wish.
Get a valve regrind done. Make sure you set the valve clearances right. Otherwise you will burn out your exhaust valves. You can search on here about how to do that. They may be able to set on the bench at the machine shop. You will need to get hold of some shims for this.

James.
 
When I did my motor about 10 years ago, I looked at both the Rover spec and the Hastings spec. Both worked out to be about the same. Hastings has a good discussion of the ring gap issue here:

Checking Compression Ring Gaps

Hastings would recommend at a bare minimum 12 thou gap up to 22 thou for a 3.56 inch bore. You should check it in a few different places up and down the bore due to taper. My rings were Hastings.
 
Yes it really depends on the taper in the bore, I know in my younger days I made the mistake of making the ring gap too little on an Essex 3.0 V6 engine only to have it seize when it got to temperature :rolleyes: a lesson well learnt :D but had the extreme opposite on one very very worn Fiat engine when I didn't want to spring for a re-bore due to price and rarity of the next size up pistons, after it was correctly gaped at the top of the bore the engine had so little little compression due to the large taper in the bores mid way the the damn thing hardly wanted to start :eek:.

Graeme
 
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