Hi everyone;
This is my first post on the forum so please go easy with me .
Last weekend when i had to change the head cylinder gasket due to pressurre leaking to the coolant reservoir and therefor having a hot engine, it appeared to me that pistons were smaller than they should. ie: there was a gap between the pistons and bore of about 1.2 mm (i did not have the proper measuring tools).
Is this OK or should i change the pistons ?
Thanks.

welcome to FF! :wave:

Sounds pretty normal to me, assuming a fire engine, the pistons do have quite a bit of lateral movement compared to some engines i've dismantled. I don't have tolerances to hand but they prob move more than you are expecting them too..

Thanks for the reply. How would i know that's a fire engine, all i know is that it's a 1998 1.2L 8 valve engine ?

then yes its a fire engine... the only other engine it could have been is the older 1.6 8v or 1.4GT all hte other engines found in a mk1 are fire engines

It's easy to be fooled here. Most pistons are smaller in the ring belt than further down in the body. So sticking a feeler between cylinder and piston will not reach down to the area you need to measure as the piston rings will stop it. Rocking the piston will give an idea but you won't be able to measure it. Only measuring the wear ridge if any will give a good idea of bore wear but pistons also wear. If it starts and runs then forget it.