Oil ring backing spring?

[ILikeRust]

Don - thanks very much for the confirmation! Phew...

Tom - nobody was looking at your grout. Until you said something about it.

[ndutton]

Oh no! Did Tom say he had gout? Say it ain't so!

How is it Tom that your wife allows engine parts on the counter?

[thatch]

"When the cat's away"

Neil,
Obviousely Kay wasn't at home when the pictures were taken. About 41 years ago she knew she had a problem when she came home from work one day and found a set of pistons in the dishwasher.
Tom

[ILikeRust]

I kept our old toaster oven when my wife bought a newer, better one - I keep it in my shop for baking small parts after spray painting them, and for baking japanning on old tools.

Because I really doubt I could get away with baking painted parts in the "good" one in the kitchen.

[sastanley]

Bill, what a great idea! I still use the sunshine and it is sometimes hard to come by in sufficient quantities. I always have parts laid out in the sun on the hood of the old truck, on the blacktop in the driveway, etc..

[ILikeRust]

If you bake even just regular ol' Rustoleum, it gets good and hard and, if done carefully, you actually can get a finish that looks like powdercoating.

I painted the red "hub" for the spokes on this pimped-out drill press using red Krylon. I laid it on a little bit thick and baked it, then sanded it with 220-grit, wiped it down with solvent, laid on another thick coat and baked it again.

I had two different guys ask me whether I had it powder coated.



To bake a spray painted part, first bake it at maybe 150 degrees F for and hour or two, then kick it up to 200 for maybe two hours. You have to be careful because if you bake it too hot too quickly, the paint will boil and you'll get bubbles and pits (don't ask me how I know this), and if you bake it too hot for too long, you can scorch it (again, DAMHIKT).

[67c&ccorv]

Well I didn't get any good pics of the pistons when I had mine out, but thatch sent me a couple pics backchannel, and I'm assuming he won't mind if I "borrow" them. These show the slot as well as the oil ring backing spring:





As Tom observed when he sent me those pics, it seems to me there's plenty of perforations for oil to drain back in, and if you look carefully at the backing spring, you'll see that it has little cuts out of the edges, so it shouldn't block anything to the extent that oil can't return to the crankcase.

I'm just trying to figure out how having the spring in there with the gap not aligned with the slot would cause the engine to burn oil.

Yep...just like a Norton Commando piston only the grove isn't quite as long on the Norton piston.

Just remember what the Venolia engineer told me!