1954 piston rings

[Guest kenf60]

i'm rebuilding my '54 straight 8 and was wondering about piston rings.My cast iron pistons seem to be original in very good shape as well as the 3-3/8 bore.Otto has a set of std. stock rings (2) 3/32 comp. rings and (1)3/16 oil ring. However all my pistons appear to have multiple rings in all three grooves?i dont know what all these different rings are? Can I use the Otto standard set without a problem? I've never done this before so I appoligize if this sounds stupid.

[PONTIAC1953]

pictures would help

[pm5471]

sounds like the ring land(grooves) had wore and been cut to exept spacers to take up the ware. I had thiis done years ago.

 

 

pete

[RussJagoau]

Hello,

 if you use a vernier to measure the ring groove dimensions ( width ) , that will soon tell you if the ring lands have been machined to accept the spacers as PM5471 states above.
 

This  was a standard refurbishment procedure to use when the ring lands had worn past the tolerance - usually on the lower land of the ring groove and generally on the upper most compression ring groove. When the grooves were worn, the rings were prone to flutter and breakage, especially if the bore was tapered with wear.

 

As for the ones I have seen, the lands  also wear in a tapeed r profile , hence the need to square things up again. The spacers were normally quite thin and were one piece only, if you could post a few pics that would assist to identify what the components are.

 

rgds