make sure you cut the upper ring ridge out so not to break your new top rings. quite honestly .008 is over max wear, but if you're on a budget, it's still okay, as long as the cylinder aren't too badly out of round. egg shape cylinders will never allow new rings to seat 100% no matter how decent the hone job. it'll still run fifty or sixty thousand miles which may take the rest of your life to rack-up. if adding a quart of oil every 500 miles doesn't bother you, re-ring it and go enjoy your car! you'll want to change oil every spring anyway. up here in Minnesota, most of our cars are parked 7 months of the year
Okay, I went back out there and went after it with my inside micrometers. I could not pull 4.323" through any of the cylinders at any point in the bore. I confirmed the readings with two different inside mics and measured them with outside mics. Same readings on all three instruments.
I guess I screwed up when using the telescoping gauges.
My friend put a light hone on the cylinders and there is less than .002" ridge at the top of the bores.
This really strikes me as odd. Wouldn't you expect more than .002" bore wear in 72,000 miles of pushing that monster Imperial around?
The block has the correct VIN and a reasonable casting date so I assume it's original.
Maybe there really is something to that "high nickel" claim.
