[Vwdiesel] Take no offence Ken Oldrid.

[Val Christian]

> damaging stuff if I take the wood and hammer approach? I liked Val's idea of
> reaming the edge a bit first. But, what tool do you use for such a task?

Nothing other than a "Ridge Reamer".  Standard fare at a tool store.
Some tool stores might even rent you one (Autozone?).  I borrowed one
for 20 years, then bought one, and it's been on loan since.  About
$50-$150 depending.  It has a cutting bit which you can adjust outward
for a given diameter, and then turn.  Shavings drop into the cylinder.
The trick is to take just enough off to level the ridge.  You don't want
the new rings slapping against the ridge, and as you've found out, it
can be a pain pulling the pistons with the ridge there.  (I have a
piece of maple 16"x1"x3/4" which I've used to coerce pistons out of
a cylinder with a ridge.  It's usually not necessary, but I've had to do
it on a couple of engines with 200 to 300K on the engine prior to the first
work being done.

Your favorite local machine shop guy might also be a good coach.

Remember, don't cut too much, and go in small steps.  A water-based cutting
fluid is good practice, but people have done it dry.  Any surface roughness
should be levelable when you hone the cylinders prior to placing the
newly ringed pistons.

My concern in this case, is that your piston ring lands may be elongated
enough so that you'll have to replace them.  You'll find out when you
take a new ring, and use a feeler to determine how much play it'll
have in the land.  For cleaning out the lands, I use an old ring, broken
to act as a scraper.  The object is to remove carbon based stuff, not
metal.

Also, if your bore is elongated, you may have worn skirts on the pistons.
Should you rebore, you solve the skirt slop issue.  Once or twice, I
"knurled" the skirt, and then leveled it with abrasives, adding
a little to the dimension.  I knew the engine was only going to see
30 or 50K miles, so it was kind of an experiment.  I understand that
doing that with a knurling tool was a standard practice many years ago.

Assuming you don't rebore the cylinders...you might ask around on honing.
I've always used straight stone cylinder hones.  For one thing, it tended
to help me see if I had any discontinuities in the ridge region.  But I
hear discussion that the broom type hones tend to make a better breakin
crosshatch pattern for most people.

Hope this helps a bit.  Hit me with any specific questions, and I'll
at least tell you what I can.  Good luck.