12 replies to this topic

[floatintoast]

I recently had my engine deglazed, piston rings changed and cylinder head refurbed at moorspeed. The car itself is a 1275 Mini Gt bored to 1340. THe engine work took place as the previous owner had not run in the car properly, so in december i sent it to Williams Minis in Peterborough to fix the smoking and oil leaks, got it back in February run the engine in very carefully for 1000 miles, had the tappets adjusted then after 120 mile journey (only driving at 60ish) i heard a loud slapping noise. Got it checked and its piston slap.

Now im going to call Williams Minis and Moorspeed tomorrow morning and see what they have to say. But i live in Herne Bay, Kent and dont want to have to drive it to Peterborough (especially as last time it took 3 months to complete the work) so am thinking of getting the work done locally.

What are my options with regards to getting it fixed as im bit unsure what the cure is?

Could anyone possible give me a very rough estimate to the cost of the work that is needed? (does anyone know of a reputable garage, or someone who knows what they are doing somewhere near the South East that i could get it fixed once and for all?)

Thankyou

si

[Retro_10s]

All internal combustion engine have a certain amount of piston slap,.... however...Excessive piston slap (as you describe) occurs when the clearance between the piston and the cylinder bore is too great. The piston to cylinder bore clearance becomes too great either through wear, mismatched pistons and cylinder bores at manufacturing or, a combination of both.

So it's sound like when you had your bores re-honed (deglazed) they were a bit heavy handed and have infact taken too much material off the bores.

I think the only cure is a rebore to the next size mate.. 1360.

Edited by Retro_10s, 15 April 2007 - 09:25 PM.

[biggav]

either rebore and rebuild or get a new short engine

[Jimmyarm]

I would be having a word with the company that (re)built engine, you shouldnt be getting piston slap after having that done.

As Retro said if the company that did the deglazing/honing took too much off then its not your fault, Williams Minis should have checked this when they got the block back from the engineers. If you built it up yourself (or had the engineering work done and then sent it to Williams Mini) you wouldnt have any recourse as it would be your responsibility to check it.

[minipip]

if u only live in hern bay y dont u give bill richards a ring? he could have a look for u.. hes only in ashford... and he will be able to find out ur problem and proberly rectorfy it for u?!

[Sprocket]

I doubt its piston slap, but more likely detonation.

How did you determine it was piston slap??

[floatintoast]

Just to clarify, i bought the car once it had all of the renovation work done to it. Then it had bad problems with smoking and oil leaks so i sent it back to Williams Mini's in Peterborough as they had done all of the work on the car originally, The head was reconned and the block sent to moorspeed as that is where it had originally came from, and the guy there said he would be interested to see what was wrong with it seeing as it had only done 1800miles. I got the car back eventually and other than the loud tappet noise there was little wrong with the car.

I ran in the car for bout 800 miles very carefully and while driving the car back from bromley i heard an increase in engine noise but thought nothing of it (my car is incredibly noisy anyway has very little soundproofing and revs very high anyway) then when i got home i had tappets set correctly and the head tightened and when the tappets where silenced we could then hear the noise more clearly. The mechanic had a good listen and said he thought it was piston slap, a few other mechanically minded people have had a look and have said the same thing.

I had never noticed the noise until comin back from bromley, but it may have been hidden by the loud tappet noise and then had worsened after sustained high rev driving. Now it is really bad and can be heard over the engine noise from outside the car.

Thanks alot MiniPip thats probably going to be the solution, take it to someone who really knows exactly what they are doing and get it all sorted, is a brilliant car is just a shame something has cocked up along the way.

All other suggestion welcome as i currently do not have a car

si

[TOMMO0302]

ML Motorsport are also in Kent and have a vry good reputation. Best of Luck getting it sorted

[floatintoast]

Have emailed ML Motorsport and Bill Richards, thanks for the advice

Edited by floatintoast, 16 April 2007 - 08:10 PM.

[Sprocket]

Check the crank pulley bolt for tightness.

[floatintoast]

Dont know where that is but sure i could find out, is it something i can check easily?

[Silicon Skum]

Just a thought - If it IS piston slap, and you don't want to change the bore size for whatever reason (insurance, cost of parts etc.) then the engine *could* be rebored and a cylinder sleeve shrunk into the bores in the block, which will allow you to retain the original pistons and correct bore size / CC. It WILL limit the maximum oversize bore you can go to though, 1380 will be right out of the question, due to the thickness of the insert and remaining block thickness.

I don't know what others think of cylinder inserts, and I'm sure someone will correct me if it's a bad idea etc.

SS

[Sprocket]

The cost of fitting liners and a new set of rings for the pistons is more expensive than a complete new set of pistons and a rebore. Its only a really viable option on rare blocks