Let's take the motor apart again

I read some posts on SOHC4.NET from others who had purchased the same piston kit as I. They had problems with excessive oil consumption BIG TIME!

The problem stems from installing the oil rings upside down. They push the oil up towards the combustion chamber instead of down towards the crankcase.

I had no idea whether my rings were right side up or not. All I did was install the rings in the correct order. The marks on the rings to indicate "up" or "down" are very small. Old eyes like mine need a magnifying glass to read them.

Further reading indicated that all of the rings have an "up" side. The "up" side of the top piston ring, like the oil ring, can only be identified by the mark. The second ring is kind of easy because it has a ridge along the bottom - intuition says to put the ridge on the bottom.

Here are the rings:

The first picture shows the second piston ring. The mark on it says "STD 3". The second picture shows the top and the oil ring. Click on the photos for larger pics and you can see the marks better. That's the mark indicating "this side up" when installing them on the piston.

Why a 3? Probably because this is a 3mm overbore kit for CB500 motors. I'm using it on a CB550, making it a 1/2mm overbore.

I spent a Sunday late morning and all afternoon, taking the motor apart down to the pistons, checking the rings, reinstalling and putting the motor back together. Good think I did this now, because about half of the top rings and oil rings were upside down as odds would predict.

I had some problems getting the cam chain on once again. At least this time I figured out how to slacken up the chain tensioner to get that sprocket and chain in place on the cam. Turn the little screw on the tensioner to the left to get the most slack. Don't try forcing the sprocket onto the cam if there's not enough slack, you might end up stripping the threads on the bolt!

So the motor is back together and we're getting close to startup day.