Hone or not to Hone?

[Ziggy122]

do you need to hone the cylinder bore before fitting new piston rings or not?

Some say you do - some say you dont

Haynes manual dont mention it either

Ziggy

 

[dave]

id say do, or at least score the bore with emry cloth, helps them bed in

 

[Shadeyman]

I have one of those 3 pronged cylinder honing devices and always honed the cylinders of my bikes when fitting new rings.

I'm not sure why I did I just did.

 

[Ziggy122]

Thing is if you use emry cloth, cant you easily risk making the bore out of shape so to speak?

and yea the hone things on ebay about £20 and stones are about £7

Still by then i'd need the cylinder block out to prevent debree on the Crank, so another engine is going to be as cheap

Ziggy

 

[dave]

Thing is if you use emry cloth, cant you easily risk making the bore out of shape so to speak?

you only need to remove the shine, i don't think you will rebore it with emery cloth

 

[Austin Mini]

I have never honed the engine bores. When I rebuild an engine I usually fit Cords piston rings to the pistons. I have a piece of 12mm dia silver steel (could be mild steel as long as it fits your drill chuck) 10/12 inches long with a saw cut about 25mm long in one end. I place emery paper in the saw cut and secure the bar into my electric drill. I then 'hone' the bore with the drill spinning the silver steel bar with emery paper scuffing the cylinder, up, down, up, down. This breaks the glaze on the bore and allows the rings to bed in easier. The centrifugal force keeps the silver steel bar central i.e. the emery paper scuffs the bore centrally like a hone would.

 

[fingers99]

Hone. It's not just about breaking the glaze: there may well be a small step right at the top of ring travel. When a new ring (unless a stepper ring) hits that it will at best distort, more likely break. So hone.

 

[centoproject]

if you are going to bother you may as well do it properly to ensure the longevity of the engine cram something down the bores

 

[Austin Mini]

Cords first compression ring has a cut-out to miss that small step. You have got to do a fair bit of emerying to increase the diameter by a thousandth of an inch.