My best experience with rings ever was with a MaxiForce set bought for my Cat-426's Perkins 4-holer a few years back. Them rings were not just neatly packaged nor just pre-gapped, the gaps were all with about one thou of specs, not a one needed any filing! I'm building a Deutz these days and MaxiForce don't make kits for them so I bought some supposedly OEM sleeve kits consisting of a jug and a piston with pre-installed rings, wrist pin and circlips in a box (zero documentation). Being a pre-assembled kit I would presume that the rings are properly gapped, though wisdom suggests that products made in far away exotic places are never properly anything. I'm not too keen on takingh rings off a piston just to check the gaps. Is this nonetheless the path I should stick too? Any negative experiences out there with such 'assemblies'?
No one cares more about your engine than you do, and how much trouble is it to take a look? Right now it cost nothing, maybe more later. Joe H
No way would I not check gap.
In my long experience I've found that the length of life you get from a reconditioned engine is directly related to the care you take upon re-assembly, and the level of specifications-checking you carry out. I once had a guy in my employment as a mechanic who was formerly a top Cummins dealer employee. This guy was absolutely anal about checking every single component, and every single specified dimension ever mentioned, when rebuilding any engine of mine. I've seen him go through no less than 20, supposedly "fully reconditioned" conrods, supplied by an outside reconditoner, for my Mack V8 - until he had 8 conrods that met every specification precisely. He checked conrods for nicks and other damage, twists and bends, weight, concentricity, piston pin bushing dimension - every single dimension and specification you could think of. He would even check flywheel runout, in both axial and radial planes - which a lot of re-assemblers fail to do, but which are specified dimensions as well, that affect engine performance.
No contest, I was tempted by 'prepackaged' bait. Went and checked the gaps, a can of freakin' worms! Specs for new standard rings are #1 0.30-0.45mm wear limit 0.8 #2 0.20-0.45mm wear limit 0.8 (or 1.3, conflicting docs) #3 0.25-0.4mm wear limit 0.8 found #1's 0.356 - 0.467 ..technically 4 rejects #2's 0.762 - 0.889 (gauge limit) all rejects #3's 0.279 - 0.406 ..technically 1 reject The above are for the rings that came with the OEM sleeve-kits I also have a single OEM ring set, also checked for reference #1 0.356 #2 0.279 #3 0.305 I definitely want a bulletproof engine (I call it critical-mission) which is why I went to a Deutz dealer/builder and OEM parts.
Did you check the sleeve bores? I wonder if piston/ring sets were matched to the specific bores? Of course in a perfect world they would all be identical.
Not yet, that's the next thing on the list. I've already asked the supplier to replace the rings with Deutz OEM ring kits marked "Country of origin Germany", albeit that's not quite the same as "*Made* in Germany" The kits came packaged in cylinder/piston pairs with rings preinstalled. I tested the separate ring kit in one of the jugs though, it showed in specs so those rings are certainly tighter then the others, especially the #2! I'm not that good with bore gauges (the T-handles), I have to take half a dozen readings to arrive at some obvious average. Speaking of averages, a story you will not have heard before: With lots of free time on my hands in the north I once won a bet (200 in 1970-dollar$) that I would measure the size of a +/- 200 ft building with a bubble sextant with a precision of 1 foot. I took 100 sightings on the front corners (and that's really time consuming), plotted them into what ended up looking like two blobs and then pinned the exact center of each as close as I could.
It's an unfortunate fact of life today that buying OEM parts, particularly for older models, does not guarantee the premium quality you used to expect - as corporations are run by beancounters, and they overrule the engineering depts every time. So if the engineering dept insists that Asian-sourced components regularly have suspect QC - and that this may affect the company reputation - the beancounters will always rule that only the Asian-sourced parts can keep the company "competitive in the market" - and that fat profits as displayed in the bottom line is the primary aim of the corporation, to keep the shareholders happy, and the senior execs well-reimbursed. The bottom line for you as the purchaser, is to return components that have obviously failed proper QC controls, and which do not meet the specifications provided by the OEM.
12 year old Ling has been assembling those kits ever since She turned 8. I think you can trust little Ling.
New complete engines in new equipment carry meaningful warranties, like 5 years. Engine parts, replacement engines, etc. tend to have like 6 month warranties on them. One seems pretty dependable, the other not so much. Sometimes it seems like the OEMs just box up the same aftermarket junk.
I work for one of the largest automotive manufacturers in the world. One of the issues we have is suppliers go belly up, get sold, discontinue product or tooling gets worn. We sometimes discontinue stuff before we would want to because the supplier is out of business. Sometimes we find a new supplier or the old one sold to this new one and the quality is off. It is not always a function of the bean counters, many times it is of course. Good example we build the same electric vehicle in Germany and here. Use the same supplier for the electric motors but the US made cars are supplied from a Chinese plant and the European plant supplies the other factory. We have major issues with the Chinese built part even though it is supposed to be the same.
When quality control gets blown into the weeds that is definitely a bean-counter issue in my not so humble opinion. 20 years ago I had an oil furnace installed with a blower motor made in Mexico, it failed while still on warranty, it was replaced for free but the work came on my bill. A little over a year later, same thing but this time it wasn't on warranty anymore. I went to the store and wanted another one but NOT made in the BRIC only to be told that they did not carry any. At the time the ONLY one they carried was made in Brasil. Finally after about a week of intense searching I found one in England, made in England, at twice the price, bought it, installed it. That one has been running for around 17 years. Today I'd be hard put to find another one but my condition is being hardened: I will buy only what was MADE (not just assembled or 'originating from') in either Germany, the USA, or England (just as if I were buying a bench vise). I want to know the factory where it was made and I will contact people nearby to verify. That's the level we have risen to, everyone is lying about everything all of the time; welcome to the age of TCM (Total Credibility Meltdown).
They came in separately boxed sets. My attempt to measure them fails, I just don't have the instruments and/or the know-how to wield what I have. I'd need mm/1000 precision to fit readings into the 100.010-100.032mm tolerance window (8 readings per, 2 perpendicular planes and 4 depths). My digital caliper only gives 0.01mm precision and even at that after I transfer from the T-sticks I end up all over the freakin' place. It's not like with gaps where a feeler-gauge either fits or doesn't fit and gives an arguably unequivocal statement that "gap is SOMEWHERE between the biggest gauge that fit and the smallest one that didn't". I'm kicking around the idea of taking the jugs to my blacksmith for pro measurements, if that should become necessary.
Suppliers make parts and since these are spare parts the OEM does not really care about the quality. If they were being used in production the tolerances would be better. The OEM does not want to take the time or train their assembly line workers on what to do. I try to buy things made here or in USA friendly countries. As for your liners you need a cylinder bore gauge to measure them correctly. You can probably find a shop to measure them for you v. spending the money to buy one.
Check out this video
Pretty SAAAAAD, there's a trend to do away with maintenance altogether, and the valuable 'mechanic' that humanity has been dumping on will also become a 'thing' of the past. For now I'm really privileged with a local machine shop (my 'blacksmith' as I call him, working with his son and a few employees) who although not engine specialists have the right 'clearance' hormones twitching in their bones. ams wafer nouvelle - Google Search They did a Deutz F4L912 for me in 2008, the thing had had a spun thrust-bearing that chewed the block up pretty bad, technically making it a piece of scrap. Well, he got the block up on one them milling machines that had never been designed for engine blocks, lined it up, cut some space and brass-pinned a spacer in there under the new thrust-washer. I next ran that thing in my snow-blower for about 10 years before selling it as a (very) good-runner to a guy who then just plugged-it-in to a stone crusher. Back on my present F6L912, I managed to hijack him for an hour yesterday to micro the new sleeves which (in light of the totally FUBARRED new rings) I was gettin' worried about. It turns out that he new sleeves (which even have serial numbers!) are all very tight in the bottom range of the tolerance window so I'm happy about that. The rings are another story, the Deutz dealer I bought them from is 'playing dead' right now (my guess is that they've got a HUGE issue to deal with).
The Deutz dealer (otherwise an A1 engine shop with an immaculate reputation) had the distributor replace all 6 sleeve-kits (for engine #7683932). I opened the first box and all the gaps are out of limits, even worse than the first batch. I'm kinda at a loss at this point seeing that probably all of their warehouse piles are scrap. #1 0.889+ mm #2 0.889+ mm #3 0.533 mm
Have you cross-checked to ensure the measurement specs in your manual are correct, and are not a typo - and that specs have not been changed in the interim, since your reference was printed? The "conflicting docs" you mention are the reason I mention this. Did you pin down a repeatedly identical set of specs? Despite those points, the differences in dimensions between 1 & 2 and 3 are definitely of concern. Have you considered purchasing from a "brand-name" aftermarket supplier such as IPD? These "premium level" suppliers are usually very good at making sure their products are up to specifications.
The conflicting docs were about a wear-limit of 0.8mm in some and 1.2mm or 1.3mm elsewhere. All the ring gap specs that I've found are unequivocally #1 = 0.35-0.55mm #2 = 0.20-0.45mm #3 = 0.25-0.40mm which are roughly consistent with the academic rule of thumb of 4 thou per bore inch (0.4mm) making the obtained readings totally unacceptable even in the jungle . I wonder if some button-punching idiot didn't just code the wear-limit into the machine instead ofg the required gap, freakin DISGUSTING! I can get better quality-control than this with $100 sleeve-kits on ebay. One aficionado on a gherman forium asked me if have measured the bores, I haven't yet on this new set but if the bores were big enouigh for a fubar of this magnitude then THAT would scrap the sleeve-kits so it's a lose-lose. I'm using page 1/18 of the popular Folley manual which is the english-only copy of the same multilinguial Deutz shop manual.
At some point in my life when I was a mechanic we were taught how to use a snap gauge. It was called the cock lock and rock method. Put the snap gauge in the bore, cock it to one side, lock the gauge and rock it to the other side. Remove it and mic it. Maybe you already know this but I just thought I'd mention it.
That's almost exactly how my 'blacksmith' showed it to me too (I never did micros in my mechanical upbringing ; it was mostly electrical, avionics and armament). But like Clint Eastwood said "a man's gotta know his limitations" My digital caliper has about a 1/16" jaw so I have to align on 3 axis while getting it exactly on the rounded ends of the snapper T-bar. Gotta take many, many readings and get an average, mind you with pratice maybe... the last Deutz I done was in 2008, and the last engine was the Perkins in the OP.
Can you buy a set of oversize rings and file to fit? How are the bore to piston clearances? Back in 75 I worked at a Harley dealer. They were having a problem with un-tempered standard rings on all the sportsters. We were having to use .010" over rings and file them.
I once got a set of rings for an obscure Petter engine and found they were way long. The OEM part numbers were missing and all the vendor had to go by was an obscure military NSN on them. We were contemplating filing them in this way but he rather took them back and made a better guess and we got standard rings.
Right now I'm (probably) in the middle of a situation 'debated' between the dealer and Deutz or distributor. I have piles of 'supposedly' OEM quality boxes of scrap. I can only imagine the other parties throwing the ball back and forth but am really in the dark about that. I exchange with the dealer, not Deutz, for now. I did suggest that the easiest way to resolve would be to supply me with a set of OEM ring packs (if none exist then MAYBE I could file down oversize rings) and I would send back the latest set of sleeve-kits. I'm waiting for a reply, I doubt that the dealer OR kremlin could ever approve in writing the filing down of oversize rings, that would be really funny! For Now I have to wait out the wars raging over my head
You can only file so much, OS ring diameters cannot be filed. I'm not much for plugging trademarks but these days my mind keeps returning to the MaxForce rings I put in my Perkins, man them things were ALL bang-on, every single one of them, individually packaged too. Another question, why the HUCK put rings ON pistons in a kit with a sleeve IF they haven't been gapped into those sleeves? I mean there's a risk of breaking a ring every time you take one off the piston.
The time I was involved in filing oversize rings it was actually the factory approved fix for oil burning under warranty. ALL the standard rings were soft so replacing them with the same produced the same problem. You could twist them like a pretzel without breaking one. The .010" over rings had been tempered correctly. This happened the year AMF bought Harley Davidson and they weren't about to spring for oversize pistons and cylinders. The warranty back then was only 3000 miles. I don't remember the time limit. We just clamped a file in a vise and rubbed the ends on the file a few strokes then checked the fit in a cylinder each ring at the time until we had the correct end gap.
Yeh, that was and remains I think the approved way to file or grind them down, done a few myself. Too bad I can't file down the gaps to make them smaller Speaking of Harleys, my son had one and on the occasion of one visit after which he took off for home the wife and I were outside waving good-bye (it was an 800 mile trip he was heading into). Once he got back home he called us as per protocol to say that all was well, or almost. His backpack loaded with the goodies we gave him had unzipped and was empty.
*The true measure of a mans character, is how he treats those who can do nothing for him.* I like that sig, somehow it doesn't show anymore in a reply composition box; I'll quote it from time to time on the net if you don't mind.
The dealer has come back quoting Deutz (Germany, presumably via the distributor) with words to the effect that my measurements are reasonably close to specs but they will send me a set of rings this time. I expect them this coming week, all's well that ends well, I got delayed but will look past that inconvenience... IF the new rings pass the gap test.
The saga continues but is nearing resolution.................................................... A brief heads-up to date: 1 I buy 6 sleeve-kits with pistons and rings already on pistons I reject all the #2 ring with gaps of +/- 0.9mm. 1st red-flag: rings should always be gapped so why install them? 2 Dealer (otherwise good reputation) sends another set of 6 sleeve-kits, I reject most of the rings even worse than 1st set 3 Dealer sends 6 new ring sets but they are made for original engine and not for the seleeve-kits (probably made to cater to several engines in 912-913 family). Misunderstandings and discussions about ACTUAL specs: A Someone at Deutz and/or dealer is continuously citing the published *wear limit* of 0.8 (1.3mm for used engines) as being THE spec for NEW products. Last I heard NEW products have no wear limit B I refer to the published #2 ring gap spec of 0.20-0.45mm. General engineering standards point to about 0.05-0.11 mm of gap for every inch of cylinder bore. Can any guru in the present host nonequivocally confirm or add to this? I'm particularly in need of further documentation (full good quality pages) to support my argument. As far as I'm concerned a ring with 1mm gap has no business in a 4" jug! And why would only the #2 rings be subjected to such misread specs when the others are 'as per' specs? I do NOT know who fubarred (might have been some unknown station in the supply-chain) but I want my engine to go 40k hours and not blow-by before 3k. Worst case scenario I find some great quality Japanese rings for 4" cylinders? TIA
Nearing something but that may not be (satisfactory) resolution. The 'dealer' has completely refunded me (except for what my blacksmith had charged me for measuring things). I'm not really interested in whom to blame, nor do I know who is dirty if anyone. So here I am almost a year into the project and still no cylinders, pistons, or rings. I consider this to be a TOTAL DISGRACE, that a 30 year old ENGINE should have no more OEM parts for it! Why bother using bearings, bushings or rings at all if we're going to have throw-away engines? Meanwhile I have put the request in to ANOTHER Deutz dealer and am waiting for a quote and advice. As far as I've been able to determine 1 The after-market OEM sleeve-kit #2 rings are SCRAP (1mm gap) 2 The OEM pistons and the ones in the after-market OEM sleeve-kits are not the same 3 The available OEM rings do not fit the sleeve-kit pistons 4 There may be no OEM standalone pistons or cylinders available 5 I may have to RE-buy the OEM sleeve-kits after all and find Chinese #2 rings for them 6 I would have more confidence in Japanese rings if I could find the right replacement
Does Hastings make anything to fit? I always had good luck with them, luck being a good part of any engine rebuild. Joe H
Don't know, I haven't crossed that red line yet. I do have a couple of allegedly "not bad" suppliers through local dealers (off hand I think Memoparts and Reliance are two) but the only one I have experience with is MaxForce who don't do any Deutz. The bottom line is that you have two choices: OEM made under license in China and not-0EM made not under license in China. Seeing how badly even OEM rings were messed up I hate to think of quality control in the non-OEM factories As far as I have been able to determine this engine probably had an in-frame job done with knockoff jobber cylinders, one twisted in an overheat which with two others was worn past oversize as well, so I'm not too keen on that route unless unavoidable.
Hastings catalog 3.937 rings available From here https://hastingspistonrings.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/diametrical.pdf Joe H
We have a local piston casting manufacturer who makes pistons to order, for virtually any engine, provided you can supply a sample or drawings - surely there must be businesses similar in your region? Our Brands - JP PISTONS - Nornda www.norndaautomotive.com.au
The Hastings rings don't match the grove thicknesses I've seen so far but I've bookmarked them just in case. Manufactured pistons are probably not needed. I'm getting Memoparts chinese knockoff prices of around $260cad per sleeve-kit. If I remember correctly the OEM but SCRAP and definitely not "made in Germany" sleeve-kits I returned were $740cad ea but I'm waiting on two other quotes from other dealers. OEM but unconfirmed if "made in Germany" is $812cad a piston kit + $770cad a cylinder. These sets at $1600 are prohibitive, maybe they're charging air freight. I can get 6 chinese sets for that price which instead of a 40,000 hour engine would mean one with jug changes every 6,000 hours ....or less