Motorcycle Repair: enginr overhaul, harley davidson xlh, piston rings

Question
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Followup To Mike!
Question -  to aswer your question yes the shop that did the boreing furnished the pistons and rings, I could only think that he had the pistons before he did the boring. I dint know enough about weather the rings have too much gap or not, he could tell me that the .023in. and .028in ring gap was just fine and I would have to take his word on it.  You mentioned geting smaller rings, the pistons are .010in oversize and rings are .010in oversize, what size rings should I get.  Is .028in. too much gap in the cylinder? the piston seems to have about .004in clearence in cylinder.

thanks, Bill

Dear Mike!

I just bought new pistons and rings and had my cylenders rebored. whin I checked the ring end clerance in the cylender they had, front cylender,
.028in., rear cylender, .023 in. but the specifications in the manul is, ring end gap .015 to .025in.  what should I do? will that give less compression? I havent put it back togeather yet.
1977 Harley davidson xlh 1000.

thank you
Bill

Answer -
When boring shovelhead cylinders, you need to measure the piston and then bore the cylinders to a certain size. SO the place that bored them should have had the pistons. Did they do this? If it were me I would check the boring job and make sure it was not bored to big. If the bore is ok then you need to get smaller piston rings. If you have to large of a gap you will lose some compression.
Good luck and happy riding
Mike

Answer
The correct piston to cylinder should be .003 to .004 so you are inline with that. At to the ring gap. You can go with standard rings, since the bike was over bored to .010. Gap the rings in the cylinder and then you can file them smaller. The gap you have is a little much and you might experence oil blow by.
Good luck and happy riding
Mike