Progress so far

[bigirishk]

Steve,

It's just a thought, but what is the piston to wall clearance? This is probably difficult to test since you can't rotate the piston up easily while it's already off of the engine. I assume you're looking the cylinder wall with that piston down in the bottom.

If you have a scar, it's probably an indication that your rings on that piston could be in bad shape and are about to let go. My Johnson had a little sight panel that I could pull off and inspect the rings. When I did, they were loose when I put a tiny flathead screwdriver on to see how tight they were. In short, I had low compression because of a blown head gasket, and when I pulled the head, I found a gouge in the cylinder wall. I could put it back together with a new head gasket and run it, but I felt that the rings would certainly let go and strand me. Obviously it hadn't let go yet, or we'd both be picking out shrapnel.

Just my $.02, but I couldn't risk it. In my case, rebuild kits are about $600 with oversized pistons and all the gaskets and bearings. However, they want $75 a cylinder to hone (assuming it would clean up & that's not even resleeving). Plus, if the head surface is uneven it would need to be milled or decked at an additional cost (unlikely in your case because you didn't blow a head gasket, and the engine doesn't show signs of overheating). This coupled with the fact that you're doing all of the work yourself with no warranty, has lead me to get a rebuilt powerhead. Even a used engine from Ebay or iboats is a black box- who knows what it was used for or how it was maintained.

If we could only find a pair of clean late model 175's to split for cheap....... ;D

bigirishk (Kevin)