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well dang. I ball honed mine. Should I be concerned? Should I not trust it? It is the same ball hone I’ve used on numerous engines, but maybe I should be worried now? Reading this has me scratching my head, second guessing my ball hones ability.
kfxguy, you should be fine if you have experience with it. My concern is the hone may not remove enough material to fix this issue where there is a ridge from where the rings were or end up removing too much from the rest of the bore to bring that area in plane with the rest of the wall. I'm sure someone else here can advise better than I can.
kfxguy, you should be fine if you have experience with it. My concern is the hone may not remove enough material to fix this issue where there is a ridge from where the rings were or end up removing too much from the rest of the bore to bring that area in plane with the rest of the wall. I'm sure someone else here can advise better than I can.
gotcha. My cylinder walls are in great shape. I guess a ball hone has its place, to break the glaze and give a fresh surface for rings to seat. You may end up having to hone to the next size up and have to change pistons. which sucks.
At this point, you have nothing to lose. I'd go ahead and give it a hone and see how it comes out. You might do a little research and see what grit hone to use. There are a few variations. Flex-hone website has good info.
I haven't seen any LS with a ring ridge at the top of the bore. If there is one, the ball hone won't fix that.
While you are thinking about your next steps, get some WD 40 and keep the cylinder walls coated with it. Maybe take off the oilpan, check your bearings and apply assembly lube or oil on the bearings. When I rebuilt the SBC in my Nova, I kept a close eye on my bare block and went through a lot of WD 40 to keep rust at bay. Don't let anymore rust form if you can help it.
While you are thinking about your next steps, get some WD 40 and keep the cylinder walls coated with it. Maybe take off the oilpan, check your bearings and apply assembly lube or oil on the bearings. When I rebuilt the SBC in my Nova, I kept a close eye on my bare block and went through a lot of WD 40 to keep rust at bay. Don't let anymore rust form if you can help it.
This is where plain old grease or assembly lube works well. It will keep rust at bay for months, WD or oil typically run off fairly quickly.
I vote assembly lube over white grease. Years ago white grease was what there was, but today's assembly lubes outclass it for lubricity and ability to stick to lubed surfaces.
I kept a close eye on my bare block and went through a lot of WD 40 to keep rust at bay.
Originally Posted by SoCalDave
Assembly lube on bearings and WD 40 or engine oil on the cylinder bores will work.
I never said it wouldn't work, I was just making the point that you don't need to go through a lot of WD-40 to keep rust off the cylinder walls, You grease the cylinder walls once and that's usually all it takes. If you are doing a large batch of parts you can also thin down grease with solvent and spray it on with a weed sprayer and the solvent evaporates leaving a thin film of grease on the parts that will last for months. Look at it this way, You can look at anything that sat outside for 30yrs or more and anything metal that was greased will look like new when you wipe the grease away.
I never said it wouldn't work, I was just making the point that you don't need to go through a lot of WD-40 to keep rust off the cylinder walls, You grease the cylinder walls once and that's usually all it takes. If you are doing a large batch of parts you can also thin down grease with solvent and spray it on with a weed sprayer and the solvent evaporates leaving a thin film of grease on the parts that will last for months. Look at it this way, You can look at anything that sat outside for 30yrs or more and anything metal that was greased will look like new when you wipe the grease away.
I get it, but I still recommend engine oil or WD 40 on the cylinder bores.
Okay had some time to escape to the garage today so I pulled the pistons and rods to see what we are really working with. There was still rust in some of the rear pistons and the rings seemed to stick a bit- were not as free floating like the front cylinders. All the bearings looked really good and the pistons came out with just thumb pressure.
Now depending on the quality of the bore if honing does the trick, will likely clean up the pistons, re-ring it, new bearings and send it. Obviously if it needs to be bored will go with upgraded rods and pistons. Being around the holidays all of the machine shops are closed so will see what next week brings. Here are some pics of the pistons and cylinders. Let me know how the plan sounds? Crank Driverside rear worst cylinder Passenger side bank Rear passenger / 2nd worse cylinder Rusty piston Pistons/rods removed All pistons and rods Rusty piston/ rings Bearing
Good that you took it apart. Would have failed quickly if you would have run it as is.
See what the machine shop says. It might just need a light hone and rings.
If not, the next oversize is .005” for the LS1.
Well as predicted this snowballed into more than anticipated.
Ultimately a light hone wouldn't remove enough material to bring the cylinders where they need to be and anything more would leave the pistons too loose bringing another set of issues.
Therefore I had to do the following at the machine shop: boil the block, bore the cylinders 5 over, balance and polish the crank, new cam bearings installed.
To go along with that I picked up wiseco forged pistons and forged LPC h-beam rods manufactured by scat with arp rod bolts, rod bearings, and clevite crank/main bearings.
I just got the block back from the machine shop and started assembly.
12-26-2019, 12:59 PM
