Opening Up The Engine
Are The Pistons Supposed To Have Grooves In Them?
The first thing I did was pull off the cylinders to have a look at them and see if I could get the water out of the case. I should
have done a compression check before that, but I wanted to see what things looked like.
The pistons didn't look so good. They had grooves and scoring, and the cylinders had matching grooves.
I looked on STB's website, and they have pictures of various engine failures. Here's one that looks a lot like mine. They call it a "four-corner
seizure".
I could get new rings and pistons, and hone or bore the cylinders, but then I'd still have to pull the case apart and check out the crank. I just have better things to do with my time than
sit out in my carport and wrench on this engine. So I ordered a rebuilt engine from SBT, plus an intallation gasket set and some motor mounts. I also sent the exhaust pipe off to Jet Hot to
get a nice shiny coating put on it. Remember what it looks like? It's got to look better than it does now.
I foresee at least a couple more weekends in the carport, cleaning out the hull, replacing all the oil lines and fuel lines, building up the long block, and putting it in. At least I got the
carb rebuilt. And a shiny new winch on the trailer ($18.95 at the new Harbor Freight).
Next is engine disassembly.
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