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 , 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 buttery 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 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

mk378

You have 240k miles and oil burning, the rings are not so great to begin with.

Keep something oily on there for now to deter further rusting. I would just put together and run it. Definitely do not use anything abrasive, that's going to get grit in the rings.

Jack Murphy

Thank for the input, around the edges of the pistons there is small particles of what I think is just carbon from the top of the pistons after I tried to clean them off (they were very dirty covered in soot) I'll try my best to get it out of there before the pistons move again

Jack Murphy

Just a quick update, got the engine back together and everything seems to be working fine!!