91 B2200 back from the grave

If you're talkin' about machine shops: yes, the machine shop that re-did my cylinder head and put my pistons onto the connecting rods in Oct. 2011 is no longer in business either. Radiator shops here are few. mostly downtown, old VW parts houses also few these days....just a sign of the times (fewer fix vehicles, or get them fixed), and also better-engineered vehicles...

I guess so. I searched google and it comes back with alot, but I don't know if any are engine shops. I may just have to start calling around. I did put an ad on CL saying I was looking for one, so maybe that will pan out for me.

Try looking in the actual physical phone book of the closest major sized town for your area. They generally will be in the yellow pages, as we drop back to the method used in the 90's and before.

Chances are very good that you won't need to use a ridge reamer on your block!

I have rebuilt a dozen or so of these Mazda engines, and not once have I used a ridge reamer. If you don't have a very noticeable ridge at the top of the cylinder, DON'T use a ridge reamer! I have seen cylinders that have been totally screwed up when using one.

If you want to have perfect cylinders, then let the machine shop bore them .030" over (or .5mm) and install new pistons to match. Buy the pistons and have them bore & hone the cylinders to fit.

That said, on your block, inside the cylinders, you will probably still see the honing marks from the original build on the engine........the metal used on these engines is very good, and very hard........unless the engine has been abused all of it's life, you probably don't have much ridge at all.

I have rebuilt most of my engines by simply lightly honing with a 240 grit flex hone and re-using the stock pistons with new rings. I clean everything very well (rods, pistons, crank, & block) when doing this, especially the pistons. They look brand new before they go back into the engine.....with the exception of the slight scuffing on the skirts.......if the piston skirts are heavily scuffed, then you want to replace them......and therefore a re-bore might be money well spent if your replacing pistons anyway. But, I have several engines that were just cleaned, re-ringed, and new bearings, oil pump, new cylinder head, etc. and they run like a new truck.

There are several members on here (and plenty over at Mazdatrucking.com) that have seen the job done on these engines that I've rebuilt......they run great, and no smoking at all.....and still the original bore size, with 250,000+ miles on the engine when I rebuild it......and it runs perfectly!

Gotta head to work now, but I'll check back later........bottom line, you'll need a different crank if your keyway is boggered up, and reaming and re-bore may NOT be necessary.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet. I don't know if I will hone or bore, but I want it to last as long as possible, so probably bore. I won't be doing any honing/reaming myself, as I don't wanna take a chance of messing anything up, because I've never done it before, and will probably never do it again. The ridge isn't very noticeable. Visually you can see it, but the book says to feel it with a fingernail, and honestly I can't. I can feel a slight difference with just a finger, swiping up, but barely. I've got the morning off, so I'm gonna head over and do some inspection on it and see what I find out.

Didn't get much inspection done. Spent some time cleaning up my shop, but did get the pistons and crank pulled out. Measured connecting rod end play. Book said limit was .011 I believe, and I had no problem getting a .025 feeler in between, so thats not good. I guess it doesn't make a big difference right now, since I'll be replacing the crank anyway. The pistons came out very easily, no ridge reaming done. At first I slid them down very slowly and they did catch at the bottom (or top depending how you look at it). But with just a tiny bit of speed they popped right out. Nothing obvious yet, but I haven't started checking all the specs yet, maybe this evening.

Great......I have a engine (F2) that I have pulled apart recently and it has the worst "ridge" I have seen on any of these F2 or FE engines, and it still is very slight. I will probably bore it since I have new (.5mm over) 2.2 pistons in my stash, but I could also get away with honing and re-using the stock pistons. The biggest reason these engines start smoking is the rings.......not the bore or the pistons......the ring grooves get nasty, and the rings stick (especially the oil control rings) in the ring grooves when the engine is cold, and it smokes until the engine heats up enough to let the rings expand outward, and it quits sucking oil into the combustion chambers.

So......fix the rings (and the dirty ring grooves), and you fix the smoke. Of course, a completely re-conditioned cylinder head really helps also! On the oil pump......put a new one in for sure. Just ask EmJay about that!

Paid for already parts are great, but what if the next engine needs boring, then you buy ANOTHER set of pistons, or it could just be apples and oranges.

Well I got back to work on it a little bit. I'm a little dumbfounded, maybe it just my cheap tools, but all my cylinder measurements were smaller than what the manual calls for. They were all in the 85.9x range, with one at 85.89 and one at 86.01. That was measuring each cylinder 6 ways as called for. Is this common, or maybe just my tools or inexperience at measuring? I checked out the head and block, mainly the cylinders, and I didn't see any cracks or damage. I did see this glob on the side, not sure what its from, looks like an allen screw in it after I cleaned the gunk off?

Here's some more cylinder pics, most of #3 cause thats where my low compression was. Still not sure why. Oil rings seem to have been stuck on all of the pistons as well.

What size is the bore on the ring at the top, where a rings never have rubbed?
Is that freeze plug leaking?