Glenn sorts out the piston woes in one of his ever-expanding fleet of Commodores
Embarrassingly, I’d damaged one pot in my 1979 VB Holden Commodore wagon’s 3.3-litre engine. Bugger! I hoped I could simply fix the damage in No 1 cylinder by removing the cylinder head and sump and replace the damaged piston without the hassle of a complete strip-down.
First task for my engine fix was to drain the fluids and remove the cylinder head
I asked around my Holden-loving mates for an old engine I could strip for a piston and rod. Luke The Towie put me in touch with his mate Blake who had an old motor that I could – hopefully – use one piston from. We did each other a favour; Blake got rid of an old engine he didn’t need, and I got the engine parts I did!
Removing the sump requires lifting the engine within the engine bay – hence the engine lifting bar
To remove the sump, the engine needed to be lifted within the engine bay so after I removed the cylinder head, I used a borrowed engine lifting bar (thanks Juddy!) to raise the engine. The sway-bar was dropped, too, allowing me easy access to the con-rod bolts before the damaged piston/rod was slid out. The ‘new’ second-hand piston was removed from its donor and checked for size (thankfully both engines were factory standard so the dimensions matched – neither had been bored over-size) and the rings from my engine swapped to the ’new’ piston.
With the sump off, and the big-end cap removed, the bruised No 1 piston and its rod are finally on their way up and out
Then – to cut a long story short – it was simply a matter of reassembly: Piston and con-rod installed (also using the same con-rod bearing); sump on; engine block lowered back into the car; head re-installed with a fresh gasket; manifolds re-installed; fluids re-filled, and the electrics connected.
Thankfully the spare piston I’d sourced was identical to the damaged one from my engine
I checked my work and thankfully the engine fired instantly. At last, several weeks after disaster struck during what began as a relaxing afternoon fixing a few simple things, I was once again able to go cruising!
My ‘new’ piston – dressed in a ring compressor – ready for installation
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Photography: Glenn Torrens