At 11:14 AM 12/2/98 +1000, Neil Cotty wrote:
>....
>One last question - is it ok for me to just fix the one piston with the
problem? I was wanting to drive the car till end January when I was going
to rebuild the motor completely for racing. Can I get away with just fixing
one piston, new head gasket, rings etc?
Yes. To quote (or paraphrase) John Twist, "I have never seen an engine
failure I could atribute to imbalance". I have myself replaced just one
piston on at least three different occasions over the years, and the
engines ran fine afterwards, and for a suitably long life to follow.
It would be appropriate to use the same style of piston so the weights
might be fairly close. If you're really particular you might remove
another good piston and weigh it for reference. New sets usually have the
piston weights matched with 1/2 gram, but even if one was substantially
different, all you get is a little vibration. Each individual piston is in
there doing its own thing and doesn't know what the others are doing. If
you have 4-ring pistons, and you buy another 4-ring piston it should be
quite happy.
Barney Gaylord
1958 MGA with an attitude
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