a puller set like this?

Yes,that is the kind of puller to use for the dampener.

 

Paul,

Boonville,MO

Great, starting to feel confident about this job.



Anyone have problems centering the cover?



What about degreeing the cam? or should I not worry about for now and just swap the gearset and make sure I have my 12 pins

Check out Harbor Freight for a puller. $12.95. It is not a Snap On but then your car ain`t a BMW. Pete

Your compression is low because the rings won't seat. Not, that the rings won't seat because the compression is low. It could also be bad valves, head gaskets or excessively worn bores.

I have some basic questions and do not intend to talk down to, or in any way insult you, I simply don't know your mechanical aptitude and I think some basic questions need to be asked.

Were the cylinders checked for bore size and taper? Did you hone the cylinders when you put the new rings in? What grit hone? Ball hone or rigid? What type of rings? Are you sure you installed the rings right side up? Did you stagger the ring gaps? Did you check the ring end gaps? Were the ring groves clean before the new rings went on? Any scoring on the old pistons? Scoring on the cylinder walls? Have you run a leak down test on the motor? Were the heads rebuilt or just new springs and seals?

If you didn't hone the cylinders -or- the cylinders actually needed to be bored but you didn't want to buy pistons so skipped it -or- there is excessive taper in the bores, the rings will never seat. If you didn't hone the cylinders to the pattern and roughness that the rings require, they will never seat. It's not one hone fits all. It depends on the ring material and face. Did you have a good cross hatch pattern on the final honing?

If the rings are in upside down, they will not use compression to force them out against the cylinder walls. Some rings it doesn't matter but most have a top (taper on top inner edge, dot on top, etc.).

As you can see, there are a ton of things that will effect your rings.

I wouldn't be too worried about degreeing the cam on a driver. It's probably not perfect but it worked for the first 50 years. You can make it perfect but the gains are minimal on a stock street motor. JMO.

I would perform a leak down on each cylinder to find the actual source of the compression loss. You might be suprised.

Good luck,

SPark

Did you hone the cylinders before reringing?

54 Victoria 312;  48 Ford Conv 302, 56 Bird 312
Forever Ford
Midland Park, NJ

i honed it, i used a bluepoint hone that looked similar to a 3 jaw puller, It did not have the grit rating but was marked as "fine" i was using a hand drill in chassis so i'm sure the cross hatch was not machine shop perfect but it looked fine and was close to 45*



i don't have a cylinder mic but i measured end gaps in a few spots up and down the cylinder, it did not appear to be tapered, everything seemed to be within spec. i staggered the gaps and triple checked to make sure everything was right before i installed the piston. there was no scoring on the piston. i used a hasting cast set.



if the rings are the problem explain to me why 7 out of 8 cylinders gave me the EXACT compression numbers BEFORE the ring job. and after the ring job all 8 are within 5 psi of each other AND the original numbers AFTER the ring job. i could see the rings or even the valve seats being the problem if a couple were low and a couple were ok but they're ALL low ALL down the same amount. cylinders don't all warp and taper at the same rate, rings don't all fail at the same rate, seats don't all fail at the same rate. therefore there HAS to be something effecting all cylinders equally, hence my suspicion of the cam, specifically cam timing. if the valves are closing late on the compression stroke, all cylinders will show low compression by the same amount. if the intake valve is opening and closing late the manifold vacuum will be lower.



the rings have not seated after all this time because there was never enough compression to push them into the cylinder walls and properly wear in.

 how much cylinder wall clearance to the piston was there. if the cylinders have enough wear you will have low ring tension. not sure if i worded that correctly.

Kenny  Onalaska, Texas

YOUR ENGINE IS dead. No amount of effort will revive it. Start over, ie new cam, pistons, bearings, et all. Better yet get another one.

I agree with Pete. It's not a timing chain issue, it's a worn out motor issue. New rings aren't magical. You tried and it didn't work. My guess is it needs bored and new pistons. Was there any ridge at the top of the cylinders? If there was enough to catch your fingernail on, you need bored. Sometimes we get lucks and there will be a very slight ridge and a good hone and properly fit set of rings will buy us some time but if it's too worn there is no way around boring the block.

It doesn't take much te seal rings, you are asking yours to do too much.

What was the end gap on your rings when they went in?

SPark