Accidentally exposed oil seal ring.

[Dauner]

Hi everyone,

Having a bad go of things today, but everything recoverable. Rebuilding my 89 911 3.2 engine. To the point of checking deck height. Had cylinders bored to 3.4, and selected JE pistons from EBS racing.

Thought I would be able to get the piston pin circlip installed per some methods here on forum, but as it turns out, not going to happen without the Stomski tool for me. Just don't know how to do it.

To make matters worse, in my effort to give myself a little more room to work, I accidentally brought the piston out past the oil seal ring. I paid EBS to assemble the pistons in the cylinders, so haven't ever done it myself.

Can I go to NAPA, Oreilly's etc. and buy a ring compressor (one of the better ones) and compress just the oil seal ring and slide the piston back in, or is the smart thing to pull the piston the rest of the way out and start over. Again, I haven't ever installed a piston so i'm a little concerned I'll mess that up too. Don't have a sense of easy, moderate, hard for a first time engine builder.

Neither here nor there, but now I'm also dead in the water until I get a Stomski tool, which it's too late to get one shipped out today. Now I'm in to middle next week.

If there's anyone in the twin cities willing to loan or sell me a 23mm tool, I'd greatly appreciate it. I had taken the holiday week off from work, but now have to look to other things to work on. A bit deflated.

Any thoughts on the oil seal ring situation greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark

[Trackrash]

I had the same thing happen. I just used a ring compressor and CAREFULLY re-installed the oil ring.

Keep in mind that I have done this numerous times AND my oil ring was a one piece type.

You need to be very careful to not force it, make sure it is straight and not already broken.

[Dauner]

Appears to me to be completely in tact and a one piece oil seal.

Any more advice greatly appreciated...

Thx

Mark

[dannobee]

If your fingers are strong, you can compress the ring with your fingers, then use your thumbs to push the piston back in. If not so much, get (buy, rent, beg, etc) a ring compressor and carefully compress the ring and push the piston back in the cylinder.

[boyt911sc]

Originally Posted by Dauner

Appears to me to be completely in tact and a one piece oil seal.

Any more advice greatly appreciated...

Thx

Mark

Mark,

Find a stainless steel clamp or band to compress the ring/s. Make sure the piston is sitting straight along the cylinder and slowly and gradually compressed the exposed ring/s using the metal band. It will help slide better with some lubrication. And lightly tap the piston shirt with a rubber mallet. Tap lightly and make sure the ring is compressed inside the ring land or groove. Do not rush it. Slow and gentle movement of the piston down to the cylinder is what you need.

If you need to slightly pull up the piston to get the ring straight do it. The ring has to be compressed inside the groove to avoid any breakage.

Tony

[Walt Fricke]

+1 on trying a hose clamp. That might be best because it is much narrower than a ring compressor. Ring compressors are made to compress all three rings at once, so it is much wider. You are aiming to get just this one compressed, and it helps that it is the widest ring. Slow and easy, but mainly keep watching as you tighten until the ring is compressed enough that it is almost all the way within its groove, but the compressor you use isn't so tight that it won't slide off the ring as the cylinder moves down. Hence Tony's suggestion of lubricating all the surfaces which will slide against each other.

Or buy a ring compressor - not all that expensive, and for sure they have a smooth inner surface.

The fact that you are doing this on your workbench should make it duck soup. When doing it with the piston attached to the rod you don't have the great 360 degree up close view of the critical edge.

Stomski tool or not, I hate those J&E pin clips. The spawn of the devil

[Trackrash]

Originally Posted by walt fricke

stomski tool or not, i hate those j&e pin clips. The spawn of the devil

lol

[boyt911sc]

Originally Posted by Walt Fricke

+1 on trying a hose clamp. That might be best because it is much narrower than a ring compressor. Ring compressors are made to compress all three rings at once, so it is much wider. You are aiming to get just this one compressed, and it helps that it is the widest ring. Slow and easy, but mainly keep watching as you tighten until the ring is compressed enough that it is almost all the way within its groove, but the compressor you use isn't so tight that it won't slide off the ring as the cylinder moves down. Hence Tony's suggestion of lubricating all the surfaces which will slide against each other.

Or buy a ring compressor - not all that expensive, and for sure they have a smooth inner surface.

The fact that you are doing this on your workbench should make it duck soup. When doing it with the piston attached to the rod you don't have the great 360 degree up close view of the critical edge.

Stomski tool or not, I hate those J&E pin clips. The spawn of the devil.

Walt,

I found an easier way to install the hard JE wrist pin spring locks by installing first the spring lock at the shallow end and last at the deeper end. You don’t need the special tool. I pressed the spring in position by hand and use a socket to push it into the groove. You will hear the ‘click’ and you are done.

If you do the shallow end last, it would be more difficult and challenging to get the JE spring lock/s installed. Before using the above procedure, I swore and hated the JE springs installation. Specially when the spring flew out from your hands and could not locate it. Next time, try the shallow first then the deeper end and your outlook in life would change dramatically. I bring this subject up in the Engine Rebuilding Sessions.

Tony

[Dauner]

Hi Tony,

I don't understand your terminology of shallow and deep. Everything looks perfectly symmetric to me. Are you talking about installing outboard of the pin bore vs going thru the middle of the skirt and installing from inboard?

Regarding installing by hand, are you saying you just push the clip in by hand in the orientation shown below? Doesn't that scrape a groove in the piston? I know it's spring steel, but it's doing a LOT of compression before relaxing in the clip groove.

Thanks for all of the comments!

Mark

[Trackrash]

Originally Posted by boyt911sc

Walt,

I found an easier way to install the hard JE wrist pin spring locks by installing first the spring lock at the shallow end and last at the deeper end. You don’t need the special tool. I pressed the spring in position by hand and use a socket to push it into the groove. You will hear the ‘click’ and you are done.

If you do the shallow end last, it would be more difficult and challenging to get the JE spring lock/s installed. Before using the above procedure, I swore and hated the JE springs installation. Specially when the spring flew out from your hands and could not locate it. Next time, try the shallow first then the deeper end and your outlook in life would change dramatically. I bring this subject up in the Engine Rebuilding Sessions.

Tony

I would like to see a video of this. The first time I installed those JE clips I bent one and another vanished. It went "ting" and simply disappeared. I have yet to find it.

The next time I made my own tool. Not hard to do and was well worth the effort.
It's EMT, a bolt with the head rounded off and a long extension.

[Dauner]

Update,

I actually had a 4" hose clamp so decided to go for gold. The clamp had a slight burr on the ID so I sanded with 180, then 320, then 600 until smooth. Then cleaned in hot soapy water. Then brake cleaner, and alcohol similar to bearing installation process. I oriented the oil seal ring with gap up, and had the piston positioned so I could move the ring around without any binding, and made sure piston was level. Placed oil on both the ring, as well has the hose clamp. It was relatively easy to clamp the ring with the hose clamp after a couple tries of it popping off at the clamp gear. It's not flat there like the rest of the clamp. I oriented the clamp with the gear assembly over the ring gap and clamped til pretty snug. I couldn't see any witness of the ring from a top view so started lightly tapping with soft mallet. Very light alternating back and forth. I could see the piston going down thru the grooves in the clamp. After a minute of light tapping, the hose clamp was loose and ring back in. All in all, relatively easy.

Mark

[boyt911sc]

Originally Posted by Dauner

Update,

I actually had a 4" hose clamp so decided to go for gold. The clamp had a slight burr on the ID so I sanded with 180, then 320, then 600 until smooth. Then cleaned in hot soapy water. Then brake cleaner, and alcohol similar to bearing installation process. I oriented the oil seal ring with gap up, and had the piston positioned so I could move the ring around without any binding, and made sure piston was level. Placed oil on both the ring, as well has the hose clamp. It was relatively easy to clamp the ring with the hose clamp after a couple tries of it popping off at the clamp gear. It's not flat there like the rest of the clamp. I oriented the clamp with the gear assembly over the ring gap and clamped til pretty snug. I couldn't see any witness of the ring from a top view so started lightly tapping with soft mallet. Very light alternating back and forth. I could see the piston going down thru the grooves in the clamp. After a minute of light tapping, the hose clamp was loose and ring back in. All in all, relatively easy.

Mark

Mark,

See how simple it was to fix your problem? Let me show you my homemade ring compressor. I’ve used this for more than a dozen engine rebuilds and been using it for over 20 years now. Wait till you get to the point of installing the pistons and cylinders to the connecting rod. Sometimes you get bottom oil ring out of the cylinder by accident during the installation and you are stuck. The gizmo has saved me a couple of times and you know now what to do.



Where did you get that metal clamp with the yellow thumb screw? I like it. Thanks.

Tony

[Walt Fricke]

Mark - you have a future with this stuff. The thumbscrew on the clamp had to take all the futzing around out of it. And you recognized and took care of some edge sharpness. Bravo.

[911 tweaks]

Clamp with Yellow winged screw is for clothes dryer vent tubing...