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Piston ring rotation

154048

Atomic City Boxer
Greetings,
Here is an interesting hypothetical...My 1980 R100 began to smoke quite a bit from the right cylinder with relatively sudden onset. (Mileage 65K)
I pulled the head and cylinder expecting to find a broken ring. All rings fine, but I did notice that the bottom (oil) ring' opening was straight down at 6PM position.
The next ring was at approximately 5:20. The top compression ring was around 10:00.

I have heard that rings tend to rotate around the piston after a fashion...might they have rotated so that the two lower rings were both open in the same area? If so, would this cause oil to blow past them and overwhelm the top ring, hence the oil burning?? The spark plug on that side is a nice tan color, so the oil burning hasn't been going for long.
What are your thoughts??

Thanks

PS... I may re ring it anyway, but may not if it was a 'ring rotation' issue. everything else is in very fine appearance...valves, piston skirt, cylinder walls ...meaning no recession, scoring etc
 
Ring rotation - not the problem

Ok so you started burming oil on the right side. How do the valves look?? Sounds like a valve guide problem.
:ear:ear
 
I don't notice any visible 'issues' with the valves. Exhaust valve not sinking etc...
My confusion comes because it seems like the right cylinder began smoking quite suddenly...no problems with left cylinder...
 
Valve guides. . .

Valve guides would be my guess, too. "Supposedly" you can diagnose this by noting the light blue smoke as you roll OFF the throttle. "Supposedly" you can diagnose an oil-ring problem by noting the smoke on acceleration. This eyeballing in the rearview is OK as far as it goes, and is accurate, as far as it goes.

However, given that you've got it apart, I'd pop the valves loose and give the stems a wiggle in-place (obviously w/o being attached) and see what you detect. I'd guess that your intakes will show little movement, and (maybe) exhausts will display some movement, and you'll feel a definite difference. You can then either measure everything yourself, or take the bits to a machine shop, find out the exact numbers, and compare to spec. The "wiggle" test is just a guideline, but a pretty good one -- the stems shouldn't move very much, at all, if the guides are healthy.

Some of us are more tolerant of laying down a smokescreen, some less. Personally, I don't like it! Good luck, and let us know what you find.

Walking Eagle
 
You Tube

One of the Chris Harris Affordable Beemer Service videos shows how to check valves with an air hose.
 
I will neither eat nor sleep till my baby is back..
:eat

Actually I may have to wait till it warms up a bit...I was trying to compress rings last night with these frozen appendages called hands....
 
Once the rings have been disturbed ( taken out of the barrel ) they should be replaced. If you do that and the cylinder & piston are good, have the cylinder honed properly & install new rings. You'll be good to go in that area for a long, long time.

In an auto engine, warn guides usually show themselves at startup as the oil ( overnight ) drips down into the cylinder and at startup the engine smokes. You don't mention if the engine is burning more oil or not. Also check the crankcase vent and see that it is working properly. Maybe its buggered. There is an update for the old style valve.

Tan coloured plugs with current unleaded gas, don't happen, as they are just barely off white when they are running OK.

Its too late to do a leak down test, but that would have helped show you where your problem area was.

If you've been running the bike in cold weather , with the choke, not properly reaching operating temp etc, you could have fuel dilution of the oil, which will make it burn more as it is thinner.

Best of luck in getting your bud back on the road.
 
My right cylinder smoked on accelleration..light colored smoke. Unusual for this bike. I am using more oil.

Tell me more about the crankcase ventilation...I read somewhere that if it is not venting right, the higher pressures can cause oil backup in the Right jug...?
Don't remember where I read that..and I wonder why just the right jug??
 
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