hole in cylinder

Little tricks and some things you shouldn't do for your L Series Suzuki

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lj20Colorado
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hole in cylinder

Post by lj20Colorado »

how can you tell if you have a hole in your cylinder and if not abel to see the hole were would the hole usually be at on the cylinder
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Jimny
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Post by Jimny »

Well normally the hole is burnt on the side of the piston but I have seen them right in the middle. If you have no or very little compression in one cylinder then you most likely have a hole.

Doesn't take much to pull the head to check.
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lj20Colorado
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Post by lj20Colorado »

well my front piston has alot of presure but the rear one has little to no presure.
thanks jimny i guess ill have to pull the top of the engine off to see what im dealing with thanks.
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stevec
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Re: hole in cylinder

Post by stevec »

lj20Colorado wrote:how can you tell if you have a hole in your cylinder and if not abel to see the hole were would the hole usually be at on the cylinder
I assume you mean the piston. Jimny is right - pull the head. If you have almost no compression, the hole should be fairly wasy to see. Also check the head gasket to see if it's blown, though the piston is the most likely culprit.
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Post by lj20Colorado »

if there is a hole in the piston could that scraich the cylinder walls
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stevec
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Post by stevec »

Usually the hole will be in the top of the piston, not the side. If the hole were in the side, the rings should be enough to keep the the cylinder walls fairly clean. Might be some scoring, but nothing that can't be honed. Bigger problem is if the hole is big, and you have chunks of piston or spark plug floating around in there!
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Post by russmehl »

Depends on how the hole got there...
But if things have gotten to the point of holey piston, broken rings are likely to be included in the deal.
I've seen pistons with a "hole" along the edge. The exhaust gas just erodes a path down the side of the piston.
But look down the plug hole, feel in there with a wire.
You might not like the answer, but with real low compression, the head off will tell a tale or two.

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Post by Jimny »

Going off of what Russ just said... Normally what happens is the engine has a lot of wear from just normal driving and one of the rings will catch the exhaust port and it will damage the ring and piston in which will score your cylinder walls and pieces of the piston will get on top of your piston and put a lot of little dents into your head.

On a LJ20 engine you probably wouldn't even notice that it happened while driving, so it gets worse and worse until you lose most of your compression. It takes a while to get to that point.

With an LJ10 engine as soon as that one piston messes up you notice the power loss very quickly, at least in my dealings with them. I have had it happen on both an 10 and a 20.

Also it happens on the rear cylinder in all cases that I have dealt with.

I just finished rebuilding a 20 engine for someone and that is what happened to it.
Not saying that is what's wrong with yours but take that head off and lets
see.

ALSO: A hole can be burnt into the top of a piston by having a too HOT of a spark plug. Just a reminder to everyone, and all of us in here has said this before many times but always use what Suzuki recommends, do NOT try a hotter spark plug it WILL burn a hole in your piston.
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