Deglazing/honing
 

Building the bottom end of my engine which already has 'B' pistons in it from factory. Cylinders and pistons are within tolerances. Normally would give the cylinders a hone to give it a good crosshatch but was reading the factory manual and:
- The 1998 '3rd edition' of the 4.0 and 4.6L v8 engine overhaul manual says nothing about honing other than 'a' pistons can be replaced with B pistons and cylinder honed over-sized;
- The 2003 '4th edition' of the same book says under piston inspection "CAUTION: DO NOT attempt to de-glaze cylinder bores".

Wondering if anyone knows the details of this? I would think it would be fine as long as you didn't result in the cylinder spec going below the 93.986 mm required for B pistons and you didn't put the piston/cylinder gap out of spec but the book seems clear ... (well at least the new one)

Anyone have any advice?

Forgot to mention I have a 1996 4.0.

I am curious about this as well. I just had my block honed during the overhaul and now I have low compression with lots of blow by. I was told somewhere that honing wasn't good for our blocks, but not why. Hopefully someone comes along with an answer

I'm fairly sure there isn't an issue with honing. What is an issue is the bore being oval and honing will not correct that.

Agreed bore geometry is key. Everyone I talk to (most with no LR v8 experience) says it's fine. But I can't see why they would put it in the FSM for no reason. There must have been a reason to add it between editions sometime in 1998 and 2003.

The best I could find but was just speculation is this advice was put in due to the heat and friction from honing causing sleeves to slip or move enough that they became susceptible to slipping but aluminum engines with sleeves are not unique to LR v8s and haven't found this advice for other engines...

It could be ring materials used, like for instance chrome moly requires a very fine hone. I'm not suggesting Rover used CM rings..... As long as your using new rings I'd blow off the manual, pick a ring and hone and go. I'll read the manual when I get home.

I did mine last year, I used a 3 stone hone on a drill like I always do on blocks I am not getting bored and mine is fine

Yep, I haven't heard these motors are anything exotic.
Tom, have you done a comp test? Love to know your numbers, looking forward to a rebuild of my own.

Yeah nothing exotic. My only thought is they were getting reports of issues with sleeves moving when honing so said not to do it in updated manual.

That said the manual says it's okay to bore if you have A pistons to B size bore so something is inconsistent with that explanation.

Interesting - had another read today and the 3rd edition says "If only new piston rings are to be fitted, break cylinder bore glazing using a fine grit, to produce a 60° cross-hatch finish. Ensure all traces of grit are removed after above operation."

This directly contradicts what I read in the 4th edition which says not to deglaze ...

My rings took like 1500 miles to break in, that said ,I have no idea how long it would take if you don't due glaze


Scouts I never did an after comp test

I think I am going to go ahead and order my parts with the plan of following the old manual with a cross-hatch. As a related question, anything you guys think I am missing given the engine is fully apart? Or anything I probably don't need to save some money? Priced out at AB but would be interested in other sources if anyone has recommendations. Total with shipping comes to $1,682.

- Main bearings, rod bearings (STD)
- Oil pump w/ gasket
- Piston rings
- Cam + lifters + new cam bearings
- Timing chain set w/ gaskets
- Front and rear main seals
- ARB main bearing stud kit
- Rear cam engine plug
- Block freeze plugss
- Main bearing side bolt seals
- Head gasket kit w/ bolts from AB (includes all top end gaskets I think). Likely have some gasket duplication in my list but playing it safe than sorry unless someone confirms.
- New thermostat and gasket

AB has the absolute highest prices of any LR vendor. Everything on your list is available from Rovahfarm.com and also through Lucky8. ARP studs are absolutely not necessary unless your adding induction and that's as available and useful as a three eyed chimp.

Hope that helps. My advice, pay good money for a good machinist. Have the heads and block cleaned, inspected, and squared. Triple check bore measurements. Balance the flywheel if needed. And research torque specs. There is a bit of discussion on correct torque spec and whether the manual is accurate and tight enough...

These engines are internally balanced and flywheel is damped. Balancing the flywheel would be only balancing the flywheel...... Just noting eh.

I bought everything on amazon and I think a lot shipped from lucky 8

I may have wrote flywheel but was thinking crankshaft. Haha my bad.

Also, I bought all of my stuff from rovahfarm except 1 or 2 things

Thanks guys. That's exactly what I was looking for - recommendations of better or cheaper part sources. Have my block and crank with my machinist now. Will post prices from the other sources here for comparison

I can do all of this delivered for under $1000

Do I need to replace connecting rod bolts? I knew you did for main bolts but the overhaul manual doesn't say to discard the rod bolts... But they show on RovahFarm as "Do not reuse"

Also what is the difference between a "floppy" and a "stiff" chain in terms of application. They are both listed on Rovahfarm and both show as applicable to a D1.

Where do ERR3330 and ERR3331 go? And how many do I need of each?

Front and rear oil seal recommendation: All-makes vs Carteco?

Can't seem to find main bolts on RovahFarm... Does anyone know a P/N? Checked to AB for a P/N but they only sell ARB as far as I can tell.

I am interested. Will order once I hear back from machine shop to confirm all is good with block.

ERR3330 is a 19mm seal, you need 8

ERR3331 is a 16mm seal, you need 2

Always Corteco

Always stiff

ERR1772 is main bolts #

Thanks Erik. PM'd you.

Good thing people actually read posts here cuz winner winner chicken dinner - $600 in savings. ........Now you can start shopping for a blower!

Isn't that the part number for con rod bolts? Or are they the same?

Heard back from the machine shop and everything seemed okay but the more I think the more I am considering getting top hat liners from Turner out of fear that I am going to build an engine to find out there is a crack in the block behind the sleeve....


The machine shop thought that was a whole lot of work and a waste of money for the fact that the car is not worth much. They are probably right on the 2nd point but if I am going to do this, I am wanting to do it right. Came up with $2,000 for installing the liners, $500 for doing a dye check on the block when the liners are out and about $500 for turning the crank 0.010 over so I can put back with 0.010 main and rob bearings.


Seems high to me but wanted to see if anyone had other thoughts on this. What would need to be done:
- bore out original liners to 0.025 smaller than OD of new liners
- counter bore for top hat (aprox 0.210"
- heat block and slide in new liners + either hold in place with tension while it cools or press once cool to seat it
- skim the block to make it flat
- hone the inside of the liners to fit the pistons.


Read another thread of someone doing this that paid like $500 in machining but that was in S. America I think? Either way the block is light and I am happy to send it somewhere to get done if the price makes sense. Ideally on the west coast though....

Bump: Anyone with thoughts on what this machining is worth?

Liners aren't an issue with our early motors. Resleaving is a bit of a waste.

Don't think there is any risk of a cracked block? I hate the idea of doing an engine rebuild and having it not setup to last 100,000 miles. And I worry the block is cracked behind the liner or could become so in the future. My original thinking is that the piece of mind was worth $600 in parts and $1,000 in labor but can't seem to find anyone willing to do the machining for a reasonable price....

My old engine, I did a HG job that failed and didn't fix the problem... Heads and block pressure tested fine so never actually found the problem. Heads fully rebuild before the HG job. Left me with the only answer that the block was cracked behind the sleeve and couldn't think of an reason why the new engine I got could not have the same problem... Like I said, peace of mind and the side benefit that the new sleeves could be honed to the exact spec of the pistons so it wouldn't be loose from day 1.

Turning my crank to 010 was 65 bucks! 500?! You can buy a new crank for that.

You you can get aftermarket pistons that are to "a" spec and lighter.

About $500 to turn crack, clean block, install freeze plugs and cam bearings but yes still expensive....

I could get 'a' spec pistons if I did the liners, but I don't think I can without. My engine has B pistons as from the factory the block already had bores to big for A specs. But even with liners, I would probably keep the stock pistons as I can hone the new sleeves to fit the pistons anyway.

For $500 I had the block and heads cleaned, inspected, measured, decked, and all new parts installed and assembled with paint.

I ended up finding a shop out of town that has done a liner install a number of times and offered to do the liner install, turn the crank and install the freeze plugs and cam bearings for $1400 which I think makes sense to me, given the time involved in the liner work. I think I will go this way as I like the idea of having the rebuilt engine being more "strong" from day 1 and also having the piston/cylinder clearances not be sloppy from day 1.

One thing on an unrelated note: in terms of engine break-in I am getting somewhat conflicting advise but my main question is-- will the piston rings properly seat if the engine is not run under load? I've read that to properly break-in the new cam I should be running for the first 20 mins at 2000-2500 rpm which makes sense to me. Then I would want to have someone monitoring things in the engine compartment (coolant level as it burps, etc)....

But I have read that the piston rings might not seat properly if the engine is not run under load and that if you don't seat them right away they may never seat....

The only way I could see to accomplish both of these is to break-in the engine, in gear on a dyno but I can't see that this is necessary....

Thoughts?

Got my bottom end back from a shop in Seattle that had done the liner job many times before and you could tell. Looks great with new liners, decked block and everything cleaned up. Also got crank machined 0.010 over just to be safe. Happy with results.


Now my issue upon looking at at my heads with my micrometer is they were rebuild a few years ago by a shop locally and I am worried they decked them too much. I am getting readings that they are 0.008" smaller than new per the factory manual. The factory manual says 0.002" resurface limit ....


Should I scrap these and get a shop that has done this on a LR V8 before to do this properly or can I make them work? A shame to scrap heads that have been rebuild but maybe they had been machined a number of times in their life by different people ....