[TR] TR 4 White smoke out the tail pipe - Follow up /Update

[Nolan]

'taint rings.  Rings are steel or iron, while pistons are aluminum.  You 
melt a piston off long before you melt rings.

Zooming in on that picture it looks to me like I'm seeing a melted and 
pitted piston.  Just what I'd expect to see from detonation.  What you're 
seeing as splashed on top solder of the piston is in fact piston metal, from 
the pits cut into the piston.

I would not continue to use that piston myself.

You do not inherently need to tear down and completely rebuild the engine 
for a piston replacement.  But since you're pulling the pan off to replace 
that piston, you might as well inspect the bearings.  And at that point, you 
start to wonder if perhaps a total inspection and overhaul isn't warranted.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "tab" <boggiano at charter.net>
To: <triumphs at autox.team.net>
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 10:11 PM
Subject: [TR] TR 4 White smoke out the tail pipe - Follow up /Update


>I pulled the head this evening (broke a head stud in the process so I will
> have to attend to that). The head itself, (valves, seats...) looks fairly
> good.
> There is definitely something going on in the third cylinder it was quite 
> wet
> as compared to the remainder of them. The rest just have a light coat of
> carbon on them.
>
> It also has what looks like metal solder on the top of the piston. You can 
> see
> it here,
> http://webpages.charter.net/boggiano/photo.htm
>
> Any idea what it could be? Part of the head gasket? It is stuck on the 
> piston
> and does not seem like it will go anywhere easily.