Cylinder scoring
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Stage IV
Joined: May 2025
Posts: 4
Likes: 1
Cylinder scoring
Hi,
I've recently purchased a 1992 softail custom with about 23k on it. Previous owner told me he had the cylinders honed and painted black about 700 mi before selling it (but the bike had been sitting in the garage for about 2 years when I bought it).
I've been tearing the bike down because I want to sand and polish the fins to get the engine as close as possible to when it was new. Yesterday I removed heads and cylinders, but what I see is not what I expected to see on a couple of "freshly" honed cylinders: a lot of carbon build up as well as discolouring and scoring on bores and some on pistons too (see pics).
What do you guys think it might have happened here?
Any suggestions greatly appreciated
Thanks!
I've recently purchased a 1992 softail custom with about 23k on it. Previous owner told me he had the cylinders honed and painted black about 700 mi before selling it (but the bike had been sitting in the garage for about 2 years when I bought it).
I've been tearing the bike down because I want to sand and polish the fins to get the engine as close as possible to when it was new. Yesterday I removed heads and cylinders, but what I see is not what I expected to see on a couple of "freshly" honed cylinders: a lot of carbon build up as well as discolouring and scoring on bores and some on pistons too (see pics).
What do you guys think it might have happened here?
Any suggestions greatly appreciated
Thanks!
Last edited by Emascarri; May 21, 2025 at 01:15 PM.
HDF Community Team
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 12,774
Likes: 2,606
From: san antonio
Freshly honed cylinders could present with scoring for a variety of reasons; poor fitment; too rich/too lean fuel; too much timing, etc. At a minimum and before doing anything, the cylinder bores should be checked in torque plates to insure the bore is straight and the pistons measured to check piston to cylinder wall clearance. If the cylinders were bored, new pistons would have been installed and the carbon build up on the pistons is more than would occur on new pistons after 700 miles of operation which begs the question if the cylinders were bored. The piston skirts are not scuffed and can be reused if fitment checks out and carbon removed.
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Joined: Aug 2008
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snookered
there are shops and there are shops
today it is very easy to print material even with correct logos and such. when i do a guitar repair and the headstock logo messed up or gone in the process, the mfg will NOT sell you one, most are silk screened. that leaves me having to get a jpeg of it off the net and scale it to fit the headstock and have a reverse image made and use that as a silk screen to put the guitar back correct.
i once saw a youtube video of a dude who says he is the premier shop and everything he does is white on rice but when i saw him remove an xl pinion gear with a claw hammer, that tells a diff story, would not let him put the chain back on a schwin bicycle.
there are shops and there are shops
today it is very easy to print material even with correct logos and such. when i do a guitar repair and the headstock logo messed up or gone in the process, the mfg will NOT sell you one, most are silk screened. that leaves me having to get a jpeg of it off the net and scale it to fit the headstock and have a reverse image made and use that as a silk screen to put the guitar back correct.
i once saw a youtube video of a dude who says he is the premier shop and everything he does is white on rice but when i saw him remove an xl pinion gear with a claw hammer, that tells a diff story, would not let him put the chain back on a schwin bicycle.
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