Author Topic: Sleeved cylinders, your experience?  (Read 1582 times)

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Interceptor398

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Sleeved cylinders, your experience?
« on: September 11, 2019, 08:43:13 PM »
I have a few sleeved cylinders I have acquired over the years including a 4/6 jug I picked up at Princeton this year.  What kind of experience have you had using them??

gixxer6

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Re: Sleeved cylinders, your experience?
« Reply #1 on: September 12, 2019, 11:31:46 AM »
I had a modified 4/6 with sleeved cylinders a few years ago.  I didn't put many miles on it, but it seemed to run good and I heard from the new owner some time later that it was still going strong. 

The key is making sure that the ring material is compatible with the steel sleeves.  Stock rings are un-plated steel (I believe) and will destroy themselves and the steel sleeve if ran.  You must run plated rings on steel.  The PO of my first Interceptor found this out the hard way (a few times) when he tried to run stock piston and rings in sleeved cylinders.  This was back when Image still had a supply of NOS.  Of course each time the rings went it took out the sleeve so he needed to resleeve them because there wasn't oversize pistons available.  Ouch!   

Interceptor398

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Re: Sleeved cylinders, your experience?
« Reply #2 on: September 12, 2019, 01:40:21 PM »
Interesting on the plated rings.  When I got my 78 Invader I found out after the fact that it had sleeved cylinders.  It ran great but would always run hot so I opened it up and found the sleeves.  Maybe the cast iron rings were causing the over heating??  I will need to find them and check.

gixxer6

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Re: Sleeved cylinders, your experience?
« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2019, 10:26:18 AM »
In his case, it would completely destroy the piston, rings, and sleeve.  Almost like the rings were welding themselves to the cylinder wall.  The rings would break, and it would chew up the piston pretty bad. 

From my understanding nikasil plating is the way to go.  It's tougher and you can use any rings on it. 

mswyka

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Re: Sleeved cylinders, your experience?
« Reply #4 on: September 13, 2019, 03:55:26 PM »
We have two sleds and two mowers with sleeved cylinders.  They run well.  And yes, chrome rings in the iron bore.

The sleds are one 440 Invader at 20 over and one Intruder at 10 over.  We had quite a bit of trouble getting the heads on the Invader to seal - coolant would find a path between the top edge of the sleeve and the cylinder casting and then find the head bolt and leak out.  Liberal application of sealant and the 4/6 head gaskets finally did the trick.

The Intruder has had no problems - probably since the fire ring seals against the top of the sleeve.

Now, with that said, I have told myself that if I ever get in another situation where the cylinders are out of spec that I will have them re-chromed.  Lucky for me they are all currently in spec.  :-)
Intruders:  1978, 1979, 1981 Custom (Pink)
Invaders:   1980 440
Projects:    1981 Invader 440

mswyka

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Re: Sleeved cylinders, your experience?
« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2019, 07:43:32 AM »
Going through our photos I found a photo of one of the old sleeved cylinders.  The sleeved one is the rusted one on the right.  Note the groove that runs around the top edge of the sleeve.  (this cylinder is not the one in the sled, this is just out of the collection, is out of tolerance, and probably won't be run again.)

I also threw in a photo of the old piston and the new piston.
Intruders:  1978, 1979, 1981 Custom (Pink)
Invaders:   1980 440
Projects:    1981 Invader 440