How to use a ball hone?

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coffee_brake · Sat Feb 21, 2009 2:00 pm

I'm putting good cylinders back onto a good motor using the old pistons and rings, also good. (Can't find a dang thing wrong with a gifted bike, a Honda 750 Nighthawk, so I'm putting it back together after the PO disassembled it.)
I need to use a ball hone on the cylinders, right? How do I use it, what do I do? Do I also need to prep the rings and pistons? They still have the carbon on them, do I clean that off?

BuzZz · #2 Unread post by **BuzZz** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 6:20 pm

To be honest, I wouldn't bother honing your jugs. A simple deglazing with a scotchbrite pad will do the job and not require your rings to go through another break-in process against a fresh cross-hatch.

Seeing the pics of your parts, this is what I would do.

Carefully take your favorite scraper and remove the carbon build-up around the bores at the very top where the piston doesn't travel. Just remove the build-up and careful not to scratch or gouge the cylinder. Really try to not scrape on the area just below the ridge more than you have to.

Then take a red sotchbrite pad and soak it in a solvent of some kind. Varsol works well, but you can use WD-40, kerosene, diesel fuel, anything slightly lubricious. Soak the cylinder in your chosen juice and work the pad back and forth in the cylinder following the cross-hatch pattern to just remove the glaze and give the walls a little tooth to seal the rings again. Then wash out the bores like a fiend. Then wash them again. Then coat them in WD-40 or motor oil to keep the rust off.

I would carefully take the scotch-brite and clean the pistons and rings as well as I could without damaging them. You especially don't want to use anything abrasive on the part of the ring that seals to the jug. Or break a ring by accident. Wash them off just as much as the cylinders and get them oily too.

Then put it back together....

coffee_brake · Sun Feb 22, 2009 4:40 am

Perfectly clear. Great, now I don't have to buy or borrow a ball hone. I already have everything I need to do this.

Fantastic, thanks!

coffee_brake · Sun Feb 22, 2009 12:53 pm

OK should I remove the piston rings?

And...the oil rings are stuck, they don't move. They're sitting in a bowl of diesel right now hoping to free them up. Can they still be used?

BuzZz · #5 Unread post by **BuzZz** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 2:24 pm

You can remove the rings if they are not too brittle to flex that much. If they move in the ring groove freely, I would clean as much build-up off as I could with a s-pad and leave it at that.

If they are sticky in the piston grooves, you should remove them and clean the top and bottom of the rings as well as the grooves in the pistons. put each ring back in the groove it came from. Again, it is easy to break a ring or gouge the piston just taking the rings off, before you go at it with a scraper, so take care.

The oil ring is a bit different, you can take it off and clean it without much worry, it is made of much flexier steel. Clean the ring groove in the piston as well, but careful not to gouge up the groove. The oil rings have to free to flex in order to work properly, otherwise the motor will likely burn more oil than it should.

coffee_brake · Sun Feb 22, 2009 2:45 pm

OK Can do!

Cylinders weren't bad at all, they are "honed" cleaned, oiled and wrapped up waiting for install.

I know I got some gasketing material into the crankcase. The oil pan had been replaced without a new gasket and was leaking. So I had pulled it off to clean it and put on a new gasket (already in the gasket set the guy gave me.) I flushed out the cases with a couple gallons of diesel fuel. Then I put the oil pan back on loosely and filled the cases and rotated the crank, and flushed it again. I hope that got out all the funk.

Thanks Buzz!

BuzZz · #7 Unread post by **BuzZz** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 7:44 pm

Your rinse method sounds as good as you can get, if a couple of gallons don't flush it out, not much else will either, lol.

You do know that if this thing blows itself up the first time it reaches 3500 rpm, I am blaming your assembly, and if it runs like a Swiss watch I am taking the lion's share of the credit, right? I may have failed to mention this fact thus far, but it was always implied.....

coffee_brake · Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:41 am

Credit, Smedit....who's got the title?!

No really I make no claims to be a fit mechanic at all, if any of my machines run without blowing up after I mess with them, it's because of someone else's experience and advice.

Like...this morning the Concours brake pad fell out of the caliper, but not before gouging up the buttons on my rotor. Also, I pulled into the parking space frantically pumping the brakes to no avail, had to gently crash into the curb to stop the bike. Then the stock tool kit was rounding off the bolts so I had to go walk half a mile in leathers to buy a set of crappy box-end wrenches, so I could remove the caliper and put the pad back in---in my street clothes---and now I have to go do it all over again with locktite and the torque wrench. Don't ask me how I learned to use locktite on a brake caliper bolt, it was much uglier than this lesson.

This is because I had the wheel off to inspect the steering stem bearing, I don't know how but I put the caliper back wrong. I think.

See? I claim no credit at all for such work!

#9 Unread post by **Wrider** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:00 pm

Gah every time I check this she's asked and already answered another question!

Sounds like you're doing great to me and I agree completely with everything Buzzz has said.

Ya know buddy? You're a pretty smart cookie, I may have to take a trip up to FrozenLandia to learn from you!

BuzZz · #10 Unread post by **BuzZz** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 3:26 pm

Steak, beer and bud are always on hand, come on up and we'll wreck some dodo.... I mean repair some malfunctions...... no, the first one sounds like more fun.

Colorado is only a good, hard day's ride from here, if you put your mind to it.... 2 days at an easy pace. I'll be here all week.....