New Rings ?

[rider3]

This head was removed from a 79 barnfind I picked up last fall and got running again. Put about 500 miles on it sorting it out, still some carburation issues ( a little lazy off idle and poor gas milage ) The head was removed to repair a broken front cam chain adjuster bolt, drilled out and installed Heli-coil. Thought as long as its apart I'd pull the Cylinder and pistons and clean everything up ( lots of carbon after 27000 mi. ) and lap the valves. I was surprised to see how clean the pistons were in cyl #1 & 6, they both seem to be running a little rich. Cyl # 2, 4 & 5 are running lean and # 3 looks like its oil fouled. Compression was up and down with # 3 being the best at 170 psi, all cyl increased 10 to 20 psi with the wet test. Is it acceptable to put new rings in the old bores ( touch up with a cyl hone first ) if everything measures ok, I have a bore gauge coming this week. Or should I just put the old rings back in ?

[cbx6ss]

Mic the pistons and bores to see what you have. I made the mistake of just new rings on another project. I wish i had gone first over for a nice tight refresh. I did that on my late model and am glad i did.
/r
B

[Jeff Bennetts]

First things first, the bore gauge is going to tell you how to proceed, if you have an egg shaped bore all bets are off.