My blaster is 2+ years old and the motor locked up the other day. I just had to wait and it started back up. I'm guessing the piston was just overheated. It did it again about a week later and I had to pull the head and jug off, clean everything and reassemble it. It started right up and has been running fine ever since. I want to rebuild the whole top end. I already bought a gasket set. My question is this: Should I just hone the cylinder or should I have it bored? It's very smooth and had no cracks or any imperfections that I can see. The piston does have some scars on it and the rings were pretty much galled to the piston, I am obviously replacing both of them. Give me some input. Should I just replace the worn parts and hone the clyinder or should I have it bored? Oh... It is still the stock bore. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif[/img]

 

Well if the piston didn't seize then there is no need to bore it. Just buy your-self a hone and you can hone it then put a new piston and rings in. Anytime that you take the piston out you have to at least hone it to get rid of the glaze otherwise the rings won't seat properly. So I would say that if there's no scoring on the piston wall then just hone it and put a new standard size piston in. Good luck!

 

better check your oil injection unit if you use one still

 

A hone will tell you if it needs to be bored or not. Any good shop will hone it for 10 bucks and if they say it needs to be bored they shouldn't charge you for the hone, just the bore!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Well I honed it out. It looks very clean and smooth now. The best part is that I will not need to get an oversized piston. I bought all the parts to do the rebuild today for $112 Thanks!

 

What kind of piston did you get and where did you get it? That sounds a little steep to me!

 

I got it at my local dealer. That price is for a Wiseco piston (stock bore) rings, wrist pin, top bearing, base gasket, head gasket, intake and exhaust gaskets. Mail order takes too long. I ordered it on Tuesday and will have it on Thursday by noon. I always get my parts from them. I've never had a bad experience with anything I got from there.

 

it would be a good idea to check the piston/wall clearance. just because the bore looks good, doesn't necesarily mean that the bore has not been worn. also, the amount of material that had to be honed out to clean up the bore is a factor too. it's something that you may want to take into consideration before you re-assemble your motor. it may save you some money down the road.

my $.02

 

That is good advice. I did do the hone at home in a 5 gallon bucket of warm water and lots and lots of soap. My dad is an auto mechanic and fortunatly for me I have access to almost any enging tool imaginable. The hone I did was just to take the shine off the cylinder wall. It didn't remove very much material at all. Basically just scuffed it. I didn't get an accurate measurement, but it wasn't much at all. Fortunatly before I bought my parts I did have my dealer's mechanic measure it and he said that it was within spec. for a stock bore piston/ring size. He did say that next time I should probably bore it and go oversize. Just to freshen things up a bit. From now on I'm going to tear the top end off and inspect it every 6 months. I figure that if I do this I can save myself a bottom end rebuild in the future.