Fitting Piston Rings
- Clean ring grooves with ring groove cleaner or piece of broken ring. Ensure oil holes (or slots) in piston are clean. Measure piston ring side and end gap clearance for all pistons.
- Ring side clearance should be checked with feeler gauge between ring and upper piston ring land. Gauge should slide freely around entire circumference without binding. If step has formed around inner portion of lower ring land, piston must be replaced.
- Using piston to position ring in cylinder bore, check end gap at least 5/8" from bottom of bore. Install rings on pistons with end gaps staggered. See Fig 1.
- If new rings are to be installed and no visible cross-hatch marks remain on cylinder walls, remove cylinder wall glaze using spring-type honing tool. After honing, clean bore and block with soap/water solution and oil cylinder walls.