Piston ring?

[Arthall111]

Can you run with one piston ring on a 2 ring piston? Waiting for delivery of rings

 

[crassius]

it is possible, but not recommended

the two rules are:
don't get lazy
don't get in a hurry

 

[Carcher]

Yes but you will lose compression

 

[FurryOnTheInside]

Having two rings keeps the piston straight in the cylinder. I think with only one ring the piston will tilt inside the cylinder, and the corner of the ring instead of the flat outer edge of the ring will scrape against the fragile chrome plating, ruining it in no time at all.

 

[Arthall111]

Thanks for the replies. Furry, how do one ring pistons stay straight? Are they shorter?

 

[FurryOnTheInside]

Thanks for the replies. Furry, how do one ring pistons stay straight? Are they shorter?

What one ring pistons, like in a car or something? Idk maybe they're thicker rings, maybe the piston is not so sloppy inside the cylinder as ours? I know it doesn't take much at all to scratch the low quality thin chrome finish off these soft cast alloy cylinders. I just wouldn't want to risk finding out what will happen if you run with only one ring.

 

[crassius]

pistons are supposed to be balanced so as not to touch cylinder - I doubt these are

in cses where rod length causes piston to be forced toward thrust wall of cylinder, they sometimes have a smal teflon button inserted into pison skirt

 

[Deleted member 12676]

It won't cause any problem other than losing some compression. Many motocross engines have one ring pistons but their ring end gap is much less than what these engines have.

 

[Arthall111]

Thank you Jaguar. I've been running it a bit with one ring and it is fine. Didn't want to waste these nice days with out my bike..

 

[LewieBike]

Actually Husky's newish LD128 weedie uses a single ring as did Echo's old 14 cc weedieaters as well as a lot of model airplane engines that are ringed.

It's generally used for lower friction on tiny engines that turn very fast. Single rings are also used on some old 1970's MX 2 strokes, again to reduce friction on a small bore engine. It's not optimum, but in the case of the Echo 14 cc they ran for years on that little ring, as long as you keep a 40:1 fuel-oil ratio and the forced air cooling system is working well.