Dubious Methods, Questionable Results: Ball Honing

I just can't bring myself to say 'dingleberry hone,' but if that's what they call it on their website, that's their business. I wouldn't want one of these spinning near any tender bits regardless.

I found a hone from Flex-Hone which came to 73mm (bore is 72mm and instructions say to get a hone the same size or the next size up) and got to work. Shout out to the trusty conversion chart here.

Here you see where I filled the plastic hootis it came in with straight 30-weight and gave it a bit of a soak & spin to get her oiled up. I also oiled up the cylinder. You can find good instructions anywhere on the internets, so I'm not going into them here.

I knew this would be a messy bit of work, so I did it in a dirty tote.

Here you see the gray mess left in the cylinder when done. This is basically oil and hone dust, with a little bit of metal. As you can see, I tried to get it to a 45-degree angle. It doesn't take long. The purpose of the cross-hatch is to hold just a tiny bit of oil in the cylinder walls. Too narrow of an angle and the oil doesn't stay, causing premature wear. Too wide and it grabs too much oil. Or something. I stopped paying attention.

Note: You're not removing a lot of metal as in a bore-out. All this does is knock the glaze off the wall so the new rings will seat. It's called 'deglazing'.

Here are some pictures of me cleaning it in the kitchen sink with soap and nylon brushes. My woman is very understanding - so long as she doesn't know I'm using the kitchen for these kinds of things, she doesn't mind.

It's probably best to blow it dry with compressed air, but I didn't have any, so I just had to keep using paper towels.

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Shit. Here's a little nick I didn't see before. Had I known it was there, I might've gone with a first-over piston and rings, then taken it to a shop for an over-bore. At this stage, I've already ordered the damned piston & rings. Hope it doesn't hurt things.