I have an air cooled unit that blew up its cooling fan and probably ran until it shut down. Trouble is the only heat shutdown on this unit senses oil sump temperature. So it may have run a long time with no fan. This has me thinking that a bore scope to look in the cylinders might be handy. I am imagining seizing and scoring is possible here. My question is would such a scope see clearly enough to make an informed decision? And not have us go tearing a good engine apart nor saying a damaged one is good to go some more?
I think it depends on what you buy and how much trust you place in what you see. I’ve got a cheap scope from HF that is the best $30 I ever spent. Saved me in a bunch of jams. I’ve looked inside cylinders and yes you can see ring marks, pitting etc. but it is hard to cover 100% of the area. A big problem is that it is not steerable. On the other hand I had the chance to use an Olympus steerable scope with a really good light source attached and it was amazing. So was the price.
The Chinese stuff on ebay is incredible. One of the guys here has one that has a good light source and a 7mm head. Went right through the injector cup hole. Very clear image.
I have one that connects to my iPhone via bluetooth. Got from Amazon.
I had the HF one, worked great until it fell apart. Now I have the Milwaukee, a little better.
The cheap ones that either wireless/Bluetooth or plug into smart phones are OK but not great. Better than older video scopes of course but still limited. Biggest issue with these is steering them to be able to see something that is off axis with the camera plus they have a limited focal range. the higher end Ones marketed for the automotive market often have two cameras, one for looking forward and one for sideways and better image quality but at an accompanying price increase. I do find images are nice to attach to a service report for documentation. I use my cheapy Cellphone borescope enough that I will replace it with a better unit when I can it saves a lot of guesswork and is so handy
This is what I have,works well ,has light ,fits in 1/4” hole
I got the Milwaukee. It’s ok but not great.