This afternoon Bailey Rettig called me to ask about something he found in his engine. He was having trouble posting a picture, so I had him send it to me. Here's the picture, and his questions about it:
Had an oil leak from the gasket holding the engine inspection cover so took it off to have a look round. Ran my hand over the cylinder walls to detect any scoring or other problems. On number 3 cylinder I found a very pronounced ridge at the bottom (see arrow on picture), probably where the lower ring ends. The ridge goes 360 degrees. Car runs good with 50 psi in each cylinder My questions are:
What would cause this ridge?
Is it a serious problem?
Anyone seen this before?
Thanks, Bailey in SoCal
That's a re-sleeve, usually put a little lower but not all machinests do it the same. No problem, unless using the old cast iron piston with the bottom ring but that's an alloy in the photo which would only have top rings.
I agree with Frank, looks like a re-sleeve. Usually full length but in this it doesn't matter
Thanks for your help, Steve.
I appreciate the comments from Frank and Jamie, as well as the PM from Mike Walker.
Bailey in SoCAl.
Looks like a lot of cylinder after the ridge for the piston to go past.
Most of the sleeve jobs that I have had done and seen will stop short of the bottom of the cylinder. This leaves a lip to seat the sleeve against and prevents the sleeve from being able to slip down toward the crankshaft. But, as has been pointed out above, there are many different ways to do many of the machining jobs.