Jack Murphy

So long story short, my 2000 Civic ex was sitting in my yard for about 5 months with the engine head off and the hood closed. I just got in it to move it yesterday, put the key in, hooked up the battery, and the cylinders started immediately turning over in the engine. I pull the key out as quickly as I can and go check out the engine, and there's some oxidization on some parts of the cylinder walls. I got out a rag and some wd40 to clean them out and most of it came off but there's still some in there that's gonna take more elbow grease or stronger solvent to polish out, however, all the cylinder walls feel very smooth, no pitting as far as I can tell, I scraped my fingernail around every one of the cylinders and they feel very even. Only on the surface rust feels not quite as smooth as the rest.

My question is how f*cked are my piston rings? I desperately don't want to have to tear down the engine and have them replaced, because I'm already miles outside my comfort zone swapping the heads on this engine and my budget is tight. the engine block has 240k miles on it to the best of my knowledge. It did have a slight oil consumption issue when it was running, but when I got my old head inspected they told me that one of my valves had not been seating properly and that produces symptoms similar to worn piston rings if I'm not mistaken. I want to get this car at least to 300k before a rebuild. I'm getting mixed feelings because I've read some places that you can just turn the engine over as a method of rust removal? Anybody have some experience with this?

Secondly, how should I go about cleaning out the rest of the surface rust? I've heard things like, steel wool, sandpaper, acid, cloth and wd-40, CLR soak, etc.. Does anyone have experience with this? What is the best method of attack for this problem? Thank you

GolNat

iTrader: (7)

I have had great luck with using a few different things:

vinegar
transmission fluid
CLR

A mixture of transmission fluid and acetone works very well.

ezone

You have the head off already, IMO it would behoove you to do everything you can for it now.
Strip it and ring it. Pull it and build it. Whatever.

Figure what to do with the rust while it's apart.....(if you ever do this again and have to let it sit for a long time, coat the cylinder walls in heavy oil to protect them and keep weather out with a layer of plastic)
If it's very fine rust it may be ok after using a bead hone....


Actually, If I knew I was going to strip it apart I just might go ahead and let it spin and let the rings finish scraping off all the rust they can....then decide after you see what's left. You already started the process, may as well finish it.

Also, why did the starter run on its own? You're gonna have to figure that out too.

Jack Murphy

I tried soaking all the cylinders with CLR overnight and the rust has already almost disappeared, I think I'm just going to try and get this thing running as is, but we'll see I may reconsider when I do some more research

As for the starter problem, I know this is odd, but when I went into the car to try and put it into neutral, the battery was dead I had the key in the ignition I turned it to the start position a few ties to see if that would unlock the transmission. It did not, and when I hooked up a battery to it I think the CPU remembered those instructions to turn the car over and it did so as soon as it had power and the key was in the ignition. That's what I've been going with, I haven't had the battery hooked up since then so it may still be a headache in the electrical system I have to deal with

ezone

Um, no, that's not possible.