Installing Piston Sleeves (&Pistons)

What is the lathe required for?

I thought the height of the cylinder sleeves was adjusted with ‘shims’. Using a lathe to modify them seems rather excessive.

When my engine was rebuilt a lathe was not involved as documented in a recent edition of Floating Power.

There is also no need to use the cylinder head to hold the sleeves down. Bolts abd washers do the same jopb and give access to fill the block with water to do carry out a leak test to ensure the seals are good

James Geddes actually fitted them so I will check with him and post back.

OK, checked with the ‘experts’ (one of whom was actual in the process of building an engine) and unless your actual block has been skimmed there should be no need to machine the liners.

However the OP (tripyrenees ) says his block has been skimmed

The new liners should come with a paper gasket set that should, when fitted, leave the liner sitting at the correct height on a standard block. You can put a thin layer of a silicone type sealant on the gasket to ensure there are no leaks as the seat can be corroded if the old seals were leaking.

If the liners sit too low, so that the cylinder head doesn’t have the ability to clamp them down, Roger Williams used to produce different sized paper gaskets (thicker) to compensate.

If the block has been skimmed then you may have to either machine the liners, or the seats in the block to compensate. For future rebuilds it would seem preferable to machine the seats in the block so standard liners can be used again, plus it will leave a better surface for the paper gaskets to seal upon.

You can use a steel rule across the liner and feeler gauge to check the height of the liners, or, the way for those with years of experience, simply run your nail across and ‘feel’ the lip at the top when the liners are in :ugeek:

There should be no need to invest in any other technical equipment to measure the heights….

Hope this helps.

@tripyrenees wrote:

Just hoping they machine shop did not skim too much off the surface.

Hopefully they didn’t take to much off and the liners will sit within tolerance.

My workshop manual says that the barrels should sit 0.43 – 0.5mm lower than the crankcase upper surface without the gasket fitted

Then choose joints of a thickness which make the barrel faces sit between 0.05 – 0.10 mm above the crankcase surface, with the joints in place before tightening

Fingers crossed time that it doesn’t require any more machining work.

@L.Lewis wrote:

I’ve looked at various parts suppliers and there’s only one set of the barrel gaskets that you can buy. Or am I wrong? ❓

The only place I know of that could supply a different thickness of barrel gasket was Roger Williams (Steam Car Developments) Tel: 01482 863344 e mail: rdrw@steam-car-dev.karoo.co.uk However I’m not sure if they are still available