From:Ed Mitzner e-mail:emitz1940@socal.rr.com
Subject:RE: To sleeve or not to sleeve? Date:Mon Nov 29 16:25:57 2010
Response to:3161
I had LA sleeve bore my cylinders to 2.758 which left
a good amount of skirt on the cylinders. I hade Vinolia
make a set of pistons 2.750 which gave me .008 pistons
clearance which so far seems to be a good combination.
Before I did this my engine smoked badly and burned a
lot of oil. And now my engine runs absolutly smoke free.
I was advised not to use 3 peice oil rings because they
could be hard on old cast iron cylinders, I mention this
because Vinolia only supplies 3 peice rings . So I used Grant oil rings. I only have 150 miles on the engine
so far but I couldnt be happier. If your cylinders are
2.750 they might clean up at even less than my 2.758 bore.
Hope this helps. lets see what others have to say .








----- ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS -----
After 8 years I'm to a point in my long KJ restoration that it appears that I am going to have to use my original KJ cylinders. They are in rough condition as there are some bad spots in the upper cylinder interior walls. They will probably not clean up with a 2.750 bore and that's about as far as I think you can safely bore them. That leaves about a 1/8" of material. At this point I have investigated sleeving them and have talked to LA Sleeve. They recommend no less than 1/16" wall thickness of the sleeve. This would result in 2 walls or 1/8" total and deducted from 2.750 bore would equal 2 5/8" finished bore size. That is 1/16" undersize from stock cylinder which means I would need a custom undersized piston. Has anyone out there done something similar to this and with what result? Some of my concerns are weakening the cylinder too much, having my machinest stake the sleeve in place and the exposed sleeve wall in the combusion chamber which I would port and polish. Or is there anyone out there that has a good set of useable cylinders? Thanks. Dennis