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I have a Craftsman/Tecumseh snowblower and the piston rings need to be replaced. Son replaced the top (stripped spark plug threads) and while doing so, went further and did a break down to clean it and discovered one of the rings had a chip. I was able to track down a NOS set in Maryland but when he was rebuilding the engine, broke one of the rings. I cannot locate a ring set anywhere. Any ideas. Worst case is a just install a new engine.

Well that those are standard rings and the OP was looking for .020 over rings.

StarTech said:

Well that those are standard rings and the OP was looking for .020 over rings.

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dang it, my bad . . . . . what is it they say about good intentions

Honest Abe said:

dang it, my bad . . . . . what is it they say about good intentions

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Easy to do that why I initially looked up the posted pn myself when the OP initially posted the request. For some reason no one has come up with the Caber rings set PN that will work. I don't have the specs here so it does me no good to even try come with a set.

What I have over the year is OEMs dropping things like the OS rings and pistons. And Tecumseh being gone since 2009 a lot of these older engines are dying from just the lack of available parts.

StarTech said:

Easy to do that why I initially looked up the posted pn myself when the OP initially posted the request. For some reason no one has come up with the Caber rings set PN that will work. I don't have the specs here so it does me no good to even try come with a set.

What I have over the year is OEMs dropping things like the OS rings and pistons. And Tecumseh being gone since 2009 a lot of these older engines are dying from just the lack of available parts.

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for what it's worth, my son works in an engine machine shop (any engine at all) and has manuals galore, and I'll see what he might be able to find...

TeeTime71 said:

I have a Craftsman/Tecumseh snowblower and the piston rings need to be replaced. Son replaced the top (stripped spark plug threads) and while doing so, went further and did a break down to clean it and discovered one of the rings had a chip. I was able to track down a NOS set in Maryland but when he was rebuilding the engine, broke one of the rings. I cannot locate a ring set anywhere. Any ideas. Worst case is a just install a new engine.

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Do you know what year this engine is ... ?

Give us the engine detail #'s, etc...

good photo's of stamping/marking, labels are great.....

my son will see what he can dig up!

unless it came from the factory oversize, or the OP has a real old time machine shop that is willing to hone or bore the cylinder out to oversize, .020 oversize rings will probably be way too big. I used to bore engines for a living when in my 20's and 30's, and it requires precision machinery and gauges - or one is worst off than having a cylinder that is worn a couple thousandths. If there was no piston slap I would run with whatever was in it. STD rings appear available for that set. FYI - the valve guides are more likely to be an issue than bad rings if compression was low. As a guide wears, it allows the valve to wobble, which causes a lack of sealing properly on the seat.

well, I guess we'll never know. Hmmmmm............

What I did was look around for an engine with a similar piston diam and go with that. I recently got a generator with a chinese motor. Being they don't sell parts for it, I measured the cyl and did what I said. It worked. Same for my 70's FS80.

ps. is the motor a HH or HM? I remember a catalog had different rings for HH and HM- cast iron wall vs plated and all.

there are factory catalogs of rings. They have diameter, thickness, type, tensile strength - all sorts of things. I had to match a set of no longer available Ferrari Dino rings once. Turned out a set of dodge racing rings were .001 thicker, same depth and the same diameter. The ring lands were already worn so we cleaned them on a lathe to square them up and pesto, perfect fit.