Many years ago when I was young and carefree I was running a VW based Beach Buggy as a daily.... the engine was a tired 1200 with one cylinder that made no compression. It was SOOoooo slow I was forced to investigate one weekend, assuming it had a burnt valve. Upon removing the head I found the crown of one of the pistons wedged in the top of the cylinder - it had neatly fractured around the oil control ring and the skirt was still happily bobbing up and down the cylinder.

I was now faced with a dilemma. Assuming it needed new valves, I'd acquired some prior to stripping the head. I now found it needed a new piston, I didn't have one and couldn't get one before the weekend was over and I needed the car to get to work on Monday.

After a considerable hunt I managed to find a 2nd hand 1300 piston (same bore) and assumed I could fit that instead. I went to swap the piston rings from the 1200 crown onto the 1300 piston to find the rings were thicker and wouldn't fit the ring grooves.... so I had to lathe out the grooves with the only tool I could find to do the job, a parting off tool! The rings now fitted, but were a bit sloppy!
With the piston ready to fit, I then found the gudgeon pin on the 1300 was larger than the 1200 and wouldn't fit the con rod.... so had to find a 1300 con rod... which I then found had a different big end journal size and wouldn't fit the crank...

With a seemingly insurmountable problem I did the only thing a young buck could do - cut both the 1200 and 1300 conrods in half and welded the top of the 1300 rod to the bottom of the 1200 one! I was at least able to reassemble the engine again and it was duly thrown back together and back in the car.

With some trepidation I turned the key and the engine sputtered into life and fired on all four.... success! Bit lumpy and out of balance, but it ran. Initially I was very nervous of giving it any beans for fear of the welded rod letting go and grenading the whole engine, but after a few days it was still running. Before long my youthful confidence had explored full power and comfortably beyond the red line.... which the engine survived. Indeed it coped with increasingly blatant abuse in a curiosity fuelled attempt to provoke catastrophic failure and continued to run with a welded con rod for many months and thousands of miles until I picked up another cheap, running 2nd hand 1600 engine and swapped them over.

The 1200 was eventually sold to another VW owner looking for a cheap temporary engine, still running and still with it's welded conrod.

I bodged a 2 1/4 petrol some years ago. Engine a freebie, 5brg with bore wear and a cracked piston. Aim was to get L/R running and then do a proper rebuild. So, cheap piston, emery bores, NOS Cords Rings(15 quid) and big end shells. Seven years later engine still running quietly, burns no oil, starts instantly hot or cold, plenty of power. I'll probably have to do the engine some time but clearly no rush. But of course these old Rover engines are built like battleships, no modern engines will tolerate such treatment. Martin

Quote from: MartinC on Jan 12, 2024, 10:59 PMI bodged a 2 1/4 petrol some years ago. Engine a freebie, 5brg with bore wear and a cracked piston. Aim was to get L/R running and then do a proper rebuild. So, cheap piston, emery bores, NOS Cords Rings(15 quid) and big end shells. Seven years later engine still running quietly, burns no oil, starts instantly hot or cold, plenty of power. I'll probably have to do the engine some time but clearly no rush. But of course these old Rover engines are built like battleships, no modern engines will tolerate such treatment. Martin

I hope you did a few oil changes very soon after fitting the Cords, they are spring steel and actually remove part of the cylinder bore, they are effective though in the short term

Peter

Seems as though we should run a confession section on this forum.

My turn...
In the early 1990s. An early Range Rover Classic, no money and had to sell it quickly. Engine ran rough - zero compression on number 7.
Slackened off the manifold, pulled the head off and found a completely knackered piston. It was an early low compression engine.
Dropped the sump, took the piston out and replaced it with the only piston I had - a high compression piston and con rod from a Rover SD1. Refitted head with the original head gasket and some Hylomar and fired it up. It ran perfectly and compression on all 8 cylinders was pretty much spot on. I then sold it to a friend.

I should add that the friend knew that we had done a temporary bodge on the engine and is still a friend!

That was 30 years ago. It's still running and nobody has touched the engine since. When they do, there will be some head scratching given it has 7 low compression pistons and 1 high compression piston.

Peter, yes, they used to say that fitting cords rings was like  "a rolling rebore". Usually gives you 10 - 20K miles. I'll probably never wear it out! Cheers. Martin

They caused the only problem I had on the S! bodge I described earlier on.  When first on the road I put hepolite rings in but it burned oil so I re ringed it with cords.  The only job we didnt do on this engine when we first put it together was to seperate the pistons from the con rods as all the small ends "felt good".  About 700 miles after the fitting of the rings one Friday night on the M1 near Leicester Forest services there was  ahell of a clatter, not knowing any better I thought it was  a big end  recovered to the services and then towed back by a friend at the end of a rope to our caving centre in Derbyshire.  Head off and sump off, lots of brass in the sump and a piece of iston skirt so out with the piston and rod - to do that big end undone rod pushed up the cylinder and piston and rod seperated then rod out the bottom and piston out of the top.  Bodgers had been there before us. (Should have known as the crown of this piston was a different shape).  The small end eye in the con rod was oval and the bush had gone.  A quick trip to Matlock anda secondhand land rover spares guy for a replacement piston and rod.  Engine rebuilt and I drove it home tp Sheffield on the Sunday evening

Peter

Hi,

It was reputed that the owner of a 1930s  Austin 7 ran a big-end one dark night.

In that era engine big-end and main bearings were white metal (similar to soft solder, and would melt under ardous aduse. The only solution was to remove the con-rod, and take it to an old fashioned engine shop.

The skilled engineer would cast a new bearing onto the crank, then bore it out to diameter, and square with the con-rod. I've been there ... twice ... using a broken piston ring as a scraper, to ensure everything was free.

Returning to the hero of this story ... he dropped the Austin's sump, and removed the big-end cap from the knackered con-rod. He then cut a strip of material from his felt hat, soak ed it in the sump oil, and wrapped it round the crank, replaced the big-end cap, replaced the sump, and continued his journey.

The car was still running well, when he sold it, several months later.

602 (Who started driving during/after the Suez crisis, when you could drive unaccompanied, despite the L-plates. Passed driving test, after 3 lessons with BSM, aged 18.)

PS. A mate bought a pre-war jalopy ... found it had a wooden piston. 
 

Quote from: diffwhine on Jan 13, 2024, 08:23 AMSeems as though we should run a confession section on this forum.

My turn...
.....

'Tis certainly refreshing. These are amusing. Love the VW saga.... The standard tone has vehicles in aspic, with much of the advice under an 'unsaid' - thus we must never use ours when there's an 'r' in the month.