1974 Fiat 128 Sedan for the Bride of Burrito.

Burrito wrote: In reply to bgkast: Here's to hoping, eh? I'm sure it can be brought back to life, it just might not have great compression when I'm done...

That just means you have to really rod on it to get the rings to seat.

Ok, so I made a few slight modifications to my HF compression tester. Right now I've got 60psi of shop air going into cylinder 1, which is about half full of atf and gasoline. The mixture is dripping out the bottom of the cylinder, so I say it's speeding up the process nicely. I'm going to do this to each cylinder for 20-30 minutes and see if that does me any good.

Well mine never self immolated, despite begin an old fiat built by communists, so I figure they wouldn't want that. The thorough fuel line replacement and carb rebuild, and the fact I only put maybe 400 miles on it before wiping a cam and no longer having time/money for it may have something to do with that though.

Pressure on the cylinders should help speed things along.

Do you guys remember that one time that I bought a car specifically for it's engine, but got a boat anchor instead? Good times, that.

So the shop air in the cylinder trick would have worked really berkeleyin' nicely if the valves sealed on cylinders 2, 3 and 4. #1 was the only air tight cylinder. Had the rotating assembly, uhhh, rotated, cylinders 2, 3, and 4 probably would have had zero compression. So, stuck motor + junk head = time to take it apart. All the way apart.

This is the view that greeted me immediately after yanking the head off of it. This is #3, which was the worst.

After about 2 hours of destroying wooden dowels with a 3 pound minisledge, I had all the pistons sitting on the bench. Obviously there was some cleaning required to get the pistons out of the cylinders.

1.

2.

3.

4.

I think the bores might be savable. I'm going to pick up a cheap hone this afternoon and see how bad the pitting is.

The head, however, will need to be gone through.

Luckily, I have this FI Yugo head with 54k on it that will bolt on without an issue.

So, if the cylinders clean up ok, I'm looking at about $130 in parts to get it back together. At the very least I will need rings, headgasket, pan gasket, oil pump gasket, cam tower gasket, intake/exhaust gasket, thermostat housing gasket, and a timing belt kit. Pistons and bearings look great and will be reused.

Those bores look pretty bad... Interested to see how they look after a hone. Be sure and measure the bore at a few places in the stroke.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this works out. This kind of thing has always scared me.

bummer, but I'm also very curious to see how you proceed with bores in that shape.

The only areas that I'm concerned with are the top .75" or so of cylinders 2 and 3. A lot of what you can see is kind of a rusty scale that is proud of the cylinder wall. This is a pretty low compression motor and, if you look closely, you can see where the top compression ring ends it's journey about .25" from the top of the block. Anything above that line, isn't going to make or break me. There's really only a half inch or so of bore on two cylinders that I'm truly concerned about. I think I just contradicted myself, but you get the idea.

Time will tell. I'm anxious to get out of work and see if it can be salvaged.

Burrito wrote:

Either you have really big hands, or that's a really small head.

In reply to stuart in mn:

Little of column A, little of column B.

I was hoping to post a series of photos of clean bores with super awesome cross-hatching, but that's just not in the books.

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2.

3.

4.

I would have continued honing, but I definitely might have crashed the E36 M3 out of the hone in a momentary lapse of not being a berkeleying idiot. The pitting is nearly imperceptible with your fingernail and is much worse in the photos. The bores feel straight and true from top to bottom.

So, what do you guys think? Say berkeley it, re-ring it and hope for the best? Or part the yugo out and wait for a cheap 1500 to come up for sale?

Ring it. What do you have to lose at this point?

Are overbore pistons not available?

I've slapped together worse, given, that was a 2 stroke leaf blower, but it worked.

overbore pistons were $200 last time I purchased a set...

Rings are cheap, worth a try IMO!

In reply to tuna55:

No, they do. There's actually a pretty great aftermarket for these motors. I could certainly order a set of 1st overbore pistons and rings to match and send the block off to be opened up, but it's just not in the cards right now.

I'm in a very similar situation to your Accord thread. This was supposed to be a quick and cheap fix as "it only needs a fuel pump to run". Pulling the motor, sending it off for machine work, and ordering new pistons doesn't fit in with quick or cheap, unfortunately.

I'm heavily leaning towards just re-ringing it at this point. Sure, it might smoke a little, or be a little down on power, but if it survives for a few years on borrowed time I will call it a success.

Burrito wrote: In reply to tuna55: No, they do. There's actually a pretty great aftermarket for these motors. I could certainly order a set of 1st overbore pistons and rings to match and send the block off to be opened up, but it's just not in the cards right now. I'm in a very similar situation to your Accord thread. This was supposed to be a quick and cheap fix as "it only needs a fuel pump to run". Pulling the motor, sending it off for machine work, and ordering new pistons doesn't fit in with quick or cheap, unfortunately. I'm heavily leaning towards just re-ringing it at this point. Sure, it might smoke a little, or be a little down on power, but if it survives for a few years on borrowed time I will call it a success.

I get it.

This is what I would do in that situation (the bores in my Accord looked way better).

Order a file-to-fit set of rings for your existing pistons, and hone the living crap out of it. Get the stone style hone, and actually remove a non-inconsequential amount of material. I am betting that with some patience and a stone hone, you can get that bore cleaned up better. It will be over by a few thousands when you're done. That's totally cool if you can still get the ring gap where you want it.

tuna55 wrote:

Burrito wrote: In reply to tuna55: No, they do. There's actually a pretty great aftermarket for these motors. I could certainly order a set of 1st overbore pistons and rings to match and send the block off to be opened up, but it's just not in the cards right now. I'm in a very similar situation to your Accord thread. This was supposed to be a quick and cheap fix as "it only needs a fuel pump to run". Pulling the motor, sending it off for machine work, and ordering new pistons doesn't fit in with quick or cheap, unfortunately. I'm heavily leaning towards just re-ringing it at this point. Sure, it might smoke a little, or be a little down on power, but if it survives for a few years on borrowed time I will call it a success.

I get it. This is what I would do in that situation (the bores in my Accord looked way better). Order a file-to-fit set of rings for your existing pistons, and hone the living crap out of it. Get the stone style hone, and actually remove a non-inconsequential amount of material. I am betting that with some patience and a stone hone, you can get that bore cleaned up better. It will be over by a few thousands when you're done. That's totally cool if you can still get the ring gap where you want it.

That sounds like a pretty good plan to me. I will pick up a fresh set of 220 grit stones and get after the cylinders again tonight.

Well, the Lisle hone stones are so far superior to the Harbor Freight ones it's ridiculous.

In other news I think I have officially honed the literal E36 M3 out of cylinder 3.

Now that I would definitely put together with a ring and bearing kit after cleaning all the grit out.

In reply to Burrito:

How does cylinder 3 now compare to factory specs as far as taper, out of round, and general size?

cough HF Sux cough

Sweet!!

You can easily measure squareness by checking the ring gap with whatever ring you have lying around as it moves down the bore, say, in 1/2" increments.

All the bores are honed and ready for the next step. A full gasket kit, 86.6mm rings, and head alignment dowels are on their way. I still have no idea what timing belt or pulleys are on this motor, so I've held off on ordering those parts for now.

In the meantime I will clean up the pistons, pull all the ancillary stuff of the crap head, clean up the bottom end, and do a vanos service on a M54 powered bimmer. Oh, and maybe cut and buff a Yugo and bolt on some Revolutions if I'm feeling froggy.

If I found some Innocenti Koral badges, would that make the Yug' better or worse?

In reply to Burrito: in regards to the Innocenti badges, it would make the Yugo better. Unless you're trying to convince yourself to get rid of it. Then that would be worse.