Cheers David
Mine were standard too its not the blowback that worries me just a small staining on my chassis. its the lack of power if this was to improve i would strip it down again and realine the rings as you indicated.
Duno, hard to say whats gone wrong with your rebuild, if you never de-glazed it properly the rings would never bed in, or perhaps the rings are so badly aligned that a large proportion of your compression is going into the crankcase, or perhaps the ridge on the top of the bore broke the top ring on a piston or more. Or perhaps you have your timing too far retarded, it's a shame that there is so little adjustment on these pumps, but the little that you can move it does make a difference.
I had a guy once that fitted chrome rings and had to take them back off because they wouldn't bed in, too hard.
I guess it is not going to get better now, I would have expected the rings to have bedded into the bores by now, and it's possible that it will get worse, and remember the longer you leave it the more **** that is being deposited in the form of carbon onto the pistons.
If you do strip it again take one of the top piston rings off and place it in the bore and push it down to the bottom and do the check on the gap. Use a piston to do this and if you dont have an old piston then take the rings completly off one of the pistons, I guess you might break one if you are not carefull but that's life, it's no use trying it with the rings on.
If the gaps are massive then you might get away with oversize rings, sizing them again and grinding carefully the ends down to the required gap which I think is only about 25 thou.
When the ring is in the bore, and a new ring is the job for this, place the ring in several positions and with a light up the bore look to see if any light is passing between the ring and the bore. If it's oval then you are fooked it's never goin to work, get some fooker with a boring bar to romp it out in place and fit oversize pistons, good ones, dunt put ****e in it.
In relation to yer head turn it upside down and if it aint got combustion chambers cut into it that will allow yer to fill with parrafin, turps or sumut, then get some putty or blue tak and make a little wall around them. Fill them with the parrafin and watch to see how quickly it runs away past the valves. On a reground valve with perfect seats it dunt, so you can guage it on that, if its ****ing right through then yer gona have to take the valves out and try and grind them in if they are not fooked, and need reground and recut.
Also with the valve springs off you need to lift the valve slightly off the seat and rock it with your fingers to check the valve guides, if they are gone then your valves pound the seats at the wrong angles and they burn again coz they never seat properly. In extream conditions the head can break off the valve, or it drops a valve, but it's rare, so dunt worry about that.
All the rest of the ****e like valve springs and that is ****e unless one is broke, measuring the length of them is a waste of time, just place them all in a line and see that they are all about the same height.
Hope that helps.
