BritishV8 Forum

Found this in my lifter valley.  No telling how long it has been there. Very light & same curvature as the bore.  I believe is is a piece of a piston skirt.  I know, I really shouldn't have been revving the piss out of those cast pistons all these years.  It always got me home.

OK it's definitely a piece of piston skirt. But the good news is that it does not break into the oil ring.

Jim

Yeah, it appears to be from the bottom of the skirt.  Best news is that it got me home from our ChumpCar race at VIR in Danville, VA.  Sooooo, maybe Ol' Red has one more V8 Meet before it's new engine time.  Hold muh beer.......

Carl, One question. How did it get in the lifter valley? It should have went in the pan.

Yeah, one would think.  I guess the crankshaft knocked it up there.  I have never seen anything in the oil.  I was considering dropping the pan just to see what else might be in there.   Thing is my last trip was over 460 miles round trip.  I may replace the head gaskets & forget I ever saw this.  I have to get to my 20th V8 Meet in 32 days.

How hard is it to get the pan off?

Shouldn't be difficult.  Plenty of clearance.  Not sure of the need..

Just at a guess I doubt it's the only piece that came off. The breaks are fresh and clean and you would normally expect a crack to begin at a stress point. Stock pistons commonly had a pair of voids or openings, one on either side of the wrist pin. Those would be a feasible point of origin for a crack because of the unsupported metal below the opening. Meaning that the broken off piece would then have a small unbroken edge on the top side. I suspect you may have such a piece in the oil pan. Not that it would keep the engine from running, and even getting you to the meet and back. And if that is where it started it is again, not in a critical part of the skirt. The angle of the end also suggests there has to be another piece.

Jim

Not to skirt the issue.... is there some additional noise of discontent, from the danger zone ?

You're so close to the problem Carl. It would be a shame not to go just a little further.
I'd pull the pan and replace the pistons.
Run it out for the season and fix it properly next winter.
Or "spin the wheel of tragedy" and see what happens.

Cheers
Fred

It should be possible to just replace the one broken piston. We did that with Matthew's 383. It came to us with a broken ring land and fresh heads so we just pulled the pan, popped that rod and piston out, and replaced it and he's been running it ever since, with the same rings and bearings.

There should be markings on the piston itself that will help you to identify it. Odds are reasonable that the replacement is still going to be available, but even if not, as long as you find all the pieces you can match a comparable one to the same weight and check top ring position if there is any ridge in the cylinder. If it doesn't rise any higher in the bore or there's no ridge you're good to go.

Jim

I'm reminded of my best friend in high school who, one-by-one, kept replacing broken pistons in his 289. Eventually, he traded that good running 66 Mustang for a 67 Fairlane GT 390.

Thanks, Paul.  

Cast pistons were not meant for the life they have lived in my MG.  Need a short term quick fix.  May run it, may go with one piston.  Not sure I can swap a whole set of pistons/rings by June with the engine in the car.  Not to mention what I will see when I get a look at the rod bearings.

 Knew this day was coming.  Ol' Red always got me home. May have to park her.

Hope your bearing is good. My first was a hi-po Buick and I ran the snot out of it, figured it'd be OK with 7 grand with that short stroke. Well, apparently not. Cracked a piston skirt, scored the cylinder, and spun the bearing. But you were lucky. First sign I had was loss of power and lots of smoke.

Jim

I'll take lucky over good every day of the week, & 2 or 3 times on Sunday!  

Yeah, back when I swapped out my cast pistons for forged, a couple of the rod bearings were starting to get down to the copper. It never did knock or make noise but apparently they didn't like the 6500 RPM shift points.
Now I never rev it past 6000 and usually not past 5500 and the engine (and my wallet) seem to be a lot happier!

BTW Carl,
If you ever get around to updating to EFI and ditching that dinosaur carburetor;-) you'll find that most EFI systems allow you to set a rev limiter to help prevent self induced damage!
Bill

I am champ at self-induced damage, Bill.  

I don't normally wind it out past 5000 or so on the street.  Different story on track days, autox, or slaying the Tail of the Dragon.  16 years of abuse on cast pistons, knew this day way coming ( was hoping for this one last season).  Grateful I am not stranded a long way from home.

So have you decided on what you're going to do? Time is getting shorter by the minute! I still have things to complete as well!!

Not quite.

I got the driver side head off.  About to go pull the pan.  Turning the engine by hand, I can't see any skirt below the cylinder on #7, like I can on the rest.  If it is #7, then that noise I heard at VIR was only the cracked header on the opposite side.  This may be the elusive cold start knocking/piston slap noise, I have been hearing that for years.

It might be. You'll know more when you get the pan off. See what identifying marks you can find on the piston once you have it out and we'll try to help identify it and look for a replacement.

Goes without saying, you're excused from the upcoming weekend here. But just to be clear about it. You need to get your ride back together. Whatever we can do to help, we will.

There's some chance I'll have my car off the rack before the weekend. So we'll be swapping that pumpkin in the RM. I'm sure three of us can handle that.

Jim

Plan A is out.  It is #7 & most all of the full shirt below the wrist pin is gone all the way around.  Bee rockin' itself to pieces for awhile.

So, I need one good 1963 Buick 215 JN block 11:1 piston, standard bore . Almost a flattop.  Markings say 1353005 Buick on one side &  C, then a  circle with a 6 in it & BOHNALITE.

Skirt used to look like this.

Looks pretty good actually. Any ring land in the cylinder? Bearing OK?

Have you gathered up all the pieces? You should do that so you can get the total piston weight.

Flat top? Should be able to measure the pin height. Match the pin height and piston weight, slap it back together and run.

It doesn't look like the Silvolite that Summit is selling, but close. They have a slipper style that should work if the weight and CH is close:
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/uem-s1718-std/overview/make/buick

I wouldn't worry too much about the compression ratio.

Jim

May have lost a few smaller pieces years ago doing an oil change.  Never saw any, though.  It is very, very close to being a flat top.  I would think a slipper piston would be much lighter.  Dale said if this was a slipper, it would have likely grenaded the engine.

I had this idea that Dan Lagrou might have one way back in the corner of his shop somewhere.  I am trying to reach Mark.