Misterclean 421 Posted January 21, 2022 As many of you already know, I've had a shop for over 38 years working on outdoor equipment. A new thing happened and just wanted to share it. A customer brought his riding mower in saying it just started burning oil. After inspecting it I suggested new rings but it didn't make since because it looked to be a low hour machine. After tearing it down I was concerned because the rings were like new. I decided to replace the rings anyway because I did express doubt about the rings to my customer and he understood he was taking a risk. I installed the oil rings first (expander with two scrapers). When the last scraper was installed the ring suddenly got tight and wouldn't expand. I took the rings off to see if I missed something........I did. There was a small ding on the piston skirt that was barely noticeable. It was squeezing the ring at that point so I scraped a small portion (like peeling a potato) off the corner of the ring gap and filed a small chamfer. The rings floated fine now. The engine runs without smoking now. I was concerned about giving my customer bad news but now I'm looking forward to talking to him. Anyone else out there have an odd problem like this before? 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jeepwm69 7,600 Posted January 21, 2022 Kudos to you for seeing it. Most of us would have spent weeks chasing the problem and not been able to fix it without throwing a new piston at it. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shadetree 5,880 Posted January 21, 2022 I can't say i've had this problem lately ?, but i can say this, when i tear an engine down, i look over every inch of the part/area i am working on. it's the small things that will come around and bite ya on the back side if you are not paying attention !. never...EVER...rush an engine rebuild. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
