piston clean up

My 351 was as bad and I used a very soft wire brush, and a round pad that was made of some sort of plastic... I guess people use that thing for gasket removal...

http://nerdzfx.com/Mustang/the351.html

I dont have pics but mine had a LOT of carbon and such built up on them. I put them in a parts washer and went at them with a wire brush, one large for the top, and a small one for the Valve reliefs. After that I took care of the brown on the sides and then let them soak for another few days. When I got them out to dry them off they looked brand new. No marks, no scoring just a clean piston!

If they are being flycut I would be shocked if the machine shop didn't tank and clean them. My local shop charged me $40 to fully clean 8 stock piston,rod assembles.

I personally like to paint the components individually off the car then assemble it all...remember what ever you paint may chip later on so touch up can be a PIA. Paint on the oil filter will disappear the first time you change your oil.

Be carefull because sometimes you can crack a piston trying to free the rod. Let the machine shop take care of that but they may break it too... good time to get new pistons though lol.

I only used lots of hard work to clean the block. The story behind this is that the engine was all messy and every year we throw a new years party in the garage. I didn't want all my friends to see a crappy engine so I cleaned and painted it. Even if it will have to be redone, I didn't care.

I cleaned the engine with brake cleaner (good high from that stuff too lol) and sanded everything with a wire brush. The block became silver meaning I got rid of all the rust before painting but that took many, many messy hours. I just used a wire brush on the pistons and that plastic thing (don't know what it's called - sorry). I used WD40 to clean them and used my air gun to blast the crap away from all that brushing... My pistons are going in the trash since I'm getting a stroker kit which contains forged .30 over pistons but they are not dammaged from my cleaning job or anything...

This is the paint I used: http://www.duplicolor.com/products/engine.html Oh and about the oil filter... it's easier to put a cheapo on than to tape everything up lol. Also the engine was painted in pieces... something about painting over gaskets that I don't like.

CODE: DE 1601 Ford Blue (see all colors here: http://www.duplicolor.com/products/colors/highheat.html).

I painted my cousin's 69 Cougar's engine with this paint and it's perfect after 3 years of use still.

The paint can be found at Wal-Mart or Autozone

Let the machine shop push the pins out inspect everything then assemble the rods, get new ARP bolts while you are at very cheap and worth it while it is apart, you'll break the stock rod before you snap the ARP bolt.

Are you going to have the assemble balanced since they are flycutting the pistons? Based on how much the machine wants for the fly cutting you could get a set of Probe SRS series pistons that will have the proper design for your motor. I thought when I checked on flycutting a few years back is was going to be around $225. New good pistons can be had for under $400...

it will take no time for the pistons to just get dirty agian, but if you have the motor apart, as in pistons out and everything, by all means have them cleaned for sure! arp bolts are always smart, reconditioned rods, see, you will be pushing quite a bit of hp on a stock block, you need good internals or it wont last long at all...

Boss 351 you spent alot of effort on that engine. Don't have to strip it down to bare metal to get paint on it, and why do you have to repaint it every year? I bet it looks good though.

The piston tops look pretty good, just some buildup in the middle. For piston cleaning use a wire brush in a drill or a die grinder at low speed. Should be able to get it all more or less shiny with brush marks; if you really want to prevent further buildup in the future then the piston (especially the top) should be polished to a mirror finish. And no it does not take a week of driving to build up the carbon, what you see there accumulated gradually over the time it was in there.

It's much easier to paint parts individually as you assemble. For the best appearance paint only the metal and remove hoses, wires, sensors, belts, etc. and mask off what you don't. Some oil filters come with a plastic wrap which I leave on till painted, otherwise just don't bother. No paint on unassembled gaskets and sand off mating surfaces that get overspray. When the engine is completely assembled... then give everything a final coat, especially in the cracks with head and oil pan gaskets. DupliColor makes Ford Blue paint, theirs is good stuff but I don't know about that color match yet.