dh12791

Okay everyone, Im new to the forum thing so I don't even know if I am posting this properly or in the right place, so any suggestions as to where or how to post this to get the right people looking at it is appreciated. I have a 1990 pickup dlx 2wd 5spd manual with a 3vze efi v6. I was working on squaring away the brakes (dragging due to bad master cylinder being contaminated when doing pads and rotors) I soon after started to get a bad knocking sound that increased and decreased with motor speed. I took apart the steering and cross members to gain access to take off the oil pan and what not in hopes I would find a not too badly damaged rod bearing, replace it, and be done. Once I got into it further I found out that the rod bearings seem to be just fine but the second cylinder from the back of the motor (not sure exactly what number cylinder that technically is) has some bad scoring on the cylinder wall. All of the other cylinders look clean and shiny as they should. So I decided that this cylinder, piston, piston rings must be the source of my horrible knocking. My idea is to, instead of rebuilding or replacing the entire motor is to remove the piston and rod from this cylinder only, hone the cylinder, and install a new piston and rings. My questions are, first has anybody done this or have experience with doing this. If I can hone this one cylinder within spec and replace the piston and rings will that be a logical solution or would this throw off the balance of the other pistons and the camshaft somehow. I realize that having to bore the cylinder completely would probably have an adverse effect on all of the other cylinders and what not. Looking forward to being hit with some knowledge.

scope103

Welcome to YotaTech.

"Honing" just takes off glaze. It's intended to be used with the same size rings as you took out. In other words, it takes off almost exactly no metal.

If your cylinder is scored, honing probably won't fix it.

You could pull the block, bore each cylinder 0.010 over, and put in new pistons, rings, bearings, the whole schmear. Sounds expensive to me. How much money do you want to put into a 26-yr old truck?

Or you could just hone the bad cylinder. You'll still have the score, but it will have smooth edges. You'll lose some compression in that cylinder. You might lose some power, your mileage will probably inch down. You may only be able to drive that engine another 50-100,000 miles.

Or maybe none at all.

Do you feel lucky?

dh12791

Hey Scope thanks for the reply.

From what I can see the scoring does look deep enough that honing won't actually fix the problem in which case I will probably put it back together and drive it as is with that awful sound and a little loss of compression and mileage like you said, as long as this won't cause any more major damage until time/money isn't such an issue. My main thing is keeping it getting me from point a to point b until I decide to get rid of it or do a complete rebuild.

I feel like trying to hone the scoring just to smooth anything out would do just as much for me as doing nothing at all and driving it as is. correct me if I'm wrong.

And I never really felt like the lucky type

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

The only thing metal to metal contact is putting metal into the oil.

just a question of just how long the oil pump lasts .

Bottom line it is yours what ever works for you

2wd 3.0 I can`t see having much value

dh12791

Hey Wyoming

Thanks for the input. I absolutely agree with the metal on metal comment although I was pleasantly surprised to find no trace of visible metal in the oil when I dropped it. My only thing is if I allow it to have the clearance it has it can only get worse from there I know. The value is definitely more sentimental then it is in the vehicle but I am also the type of person to make anything last as long as humanly possible and I take a lot of pride in rebuilding anything rather than replacing it. Oy. If only I didn't keep driving it with dragging brakes and putting strain on the motor while narrowing things down to my master brake cylinder.

toiyodah4WD

I've had "luck" with RESTORE for boosting compression. I've used for a year with every oil change.

dh12791

Thanks Toiyodah.

Ive never heard of this product before or heard anybody mention it but I am going to look into it. Its not my first idea of a fix but in my situation I suppose it can't hurt at all to try it out.