Piston Damage

[happyfallow]

So... Cleaning my piston today, i stumbled upon this little nitch out of my piston. I'm not entirely sure about it, but is it still usable? Or should I start hunting for a new piston? Thanks in advance.[img[/img]

[wiguy05]

Sure, you could theoretically JB weld the broken spot and sand it smooth (lol) But this is highly unrecommended.

Hitup marc here on the forum (or his eBay account) and have him send you one of his piston kits. At around $25 its not even an expensive repair.

EDIT: LINK

[happyfallow]

Hey thanks a lot, I'll be sure to do so immediately =]

[happyfallow]

Oh and one quick question wiguy05, does this work for my 86' Spree?

[wiguy05]

Correction: Spree Piston Kit

I see he's even throwing in a head and base gasket, whatta' guy

[Kenny_McCormic]

Gotta wonder where that chunk went! This was from a running motor? My dad tells a story where he sold a ford 302 to a guy, when it was torn down for a quick inspection the oil pan was full of piston skirts! Motor ran good and sounded fine.

[happyfallow]

Sadly yes it was from a running motor... The whole story behind this is I found this Spree just sitting in the scrap yard waiting to be trashed because someone was too lazy to find an air filter for it, so I took it home and began a complete rebuild on the thing. Cleaning every last inch of the engine, i was cleaning the piston with a spinning wire brush, and not paying attention, my finger must have slipped and the piston was knocked against the connecting arm on the crankshaft punching the cute little hole =/

[Kenny_McCormic]

Dont wire brush pistons. A guy who has been dealing with small engines longer than half of us combined told me not to, forgot his reason.

[coolgangsta24]

I can honestly say I did the exact same thing you did. I was replacing an engine bearing and took that exact same chunk out of the piston. I have it all back together now and it all runs great, even with that chip out of the piston. However I'm not sure about the long run (I've only been riding it around for a week or so) when some more metal might come off of it. But seeing how there isn't too much compression going on on that side of the piston I'm not too worried.

You might be able to get away with it like I did.

[wiguy05]

I have it all back together now and it all runs great, even with that chip out of the piston. However I'm not sure about the long run (I've only been riding it around for a week or so) when some more metal might come off of it. But seeing how there isn't too much compression going on on that side of the piston I'm not too worried.

You might be able to get away with it like I did.

yeah......good luck dude.

the next chunk that's missing will take out your crank while it's at it. Although, I do know a guy selling a brand new OEM Spree crank....

[coolgangsta24]

If it was that brittle in the first place who is gonna say it wouldn't have happened first thing when I fired up the engine again?

Could be a good thing it happened while it was out of the case.

[happyfallow]

Thanks a lot everyone for your help, I've found all of your suggestions to be very useful.

[Arnadanoob]

I would personally replace the piston and rings with it, it's not expensive and it's the right thing to do. KM did mention something very vital, you have to figure out where that missing piece went eventually.