Anyone have a flex-hone I can borrow?

[Steve Collins]

Does anyone have have a berry-bush style cylinder hone I could borrow for a couple of days? My son and I are trying to re-animate a Ford Escort that dropped a valve seat. I live in Altadena. The cyl are about 3.226" ( 82 mm?)

Thanks,

Steve

[Will Kalman]

3.226" ( 82 mm?)

I hope you're not sending it to Mars! }:)

(Sorry, I couldn't resist!)

[George Schilling]

Does anyone have have a berry-bush style cylinder hone I could borrow for a couple of days? My son and I are trying to re-animate a Ford Escort that dropped a valve seat. I live in Altadena. The cyl are about 3.226" ( 82 mm?)

Thanks,

Steve

Steve, have you checked with your local auto parts supply store. They loan common tools like that FREE.

If you can't find one, Harbor Freight has this one for $20.

[Steve Collins]

Thanks for the suggestion George. That's my fallback plan.

I'm putting a head and junk-yard pistons into a beater car in the hope of getting to 1) run and 2) pass smog, so I am sorely tempted to just use the rings that are on them, but much of the "free-advice" indicates that reusing the rings "a very bad idea".

The stuff I've read from random people online seems to be saying that a "flex-hone" (the carbide berrys on a wire brush style) does a "better job" than the older 3-stone style devices you can get virtually everywhere. It's hard to tell if that's really true or not. ( a sizable minority of folks say to leave the cylinders "broken in" ).

I figure if I'm going to spend $60 for new rings I should probably follow the full ritual and hone the cyls and I'm trying not to screw it up.

steve

[Steve Collins]

WIll,
This is a non-flight test article.

sc

[Bobby Beyer]

It does a much better job than the 3 stone piece, but if you're just fixing it so it'll pass smog and run for awhile I don't think it matters so much, you're not trying to plateau hone the engine again as that's already been done your just trying to create another crosshatch on the cylinder bore. And yes you do need to hone the cylinder when you put new rings in it as they have to "wear in" against the bore.

It would also be a good idea to check for worn out ringlands as it would be a waste of time to put new rings on a worn out piston, there pretty easy to check just get a feeler gauge and make sure the clearance is in the appropriate range for the ringland and piston ring.

Otherwise I'd go with George's recommendation and just rent one of those tools or buy a one from HF.



LOL useless information from college has a purpose sometimes

[Davin Swanson]

WIll,
This is a non-flight test article.

sc

Well, you'd better put stronger pistons in if you're going to expose it to qual environments.