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DIY sleeve re-sizing

55K views 68 replies 31 participants last post by  girishsarwal 
#1 ·
heres some info thats been openly shared on other forums, so i thought i would share it here aswell



if you have a piston/sleeve which has lost its pinch, you can resize it yourself and get some more life outta it.


heres what you need:


*Hose clamp -- from your local auto parts dealer about. 50¢
*The corresponding tool to tight the clamp. and
*The sleeve to be resized (DUH!!)

Due to other ppls recent experiences, i have added a Tip at the bottom of this how to regarding this first step which i recomend you read before doing anything.

Put the clamp around the sleeve (The sleeve I'm using is from my Pro.15 engine) and tighten it up. Do not tighten it too much. Tighten it until its hard to move the piston inside the sleeve.

***In this step use caution***
Put the sleeve on the stove so it gets really hot. The stove I used was a glass top stove so I just put the sleeve on top of the naked glass. If you have a glass top or a normal ELECTRIC stove just put the sleeve right on top, but if you use a GAS stove I would suggest putting the sleeve inside a pan or some kind of recipient so the sleeve is not exposed directly to the fire. I left it there for about 2 minutes.
********CAUTION***********
Grab the sleeve with a pair of pliers (be gentle with it when using pliers, since its really hot, you could easily bend the sleeve out of shape) or some oven gloves, and QUICKLY drop it inside a container with water. This will cause the sleeve to stay the way you tighten it up when you take away the clamp.
Now, if you can't get the piston to go inside the sleeve after the process, then take the sleeve, this time without the clamp, put it upside down on top of the stove and heat it again. After a moment take the pliers and grab the piston by the connecting rod and force it into the sleeve. This will open up the sleeve and allow the piton to enter tightly. DO NOT leave the piston inside the sleeve when you drop it inside the water again. Take the piston out by just grabbing the sleeve with the pliers and pulling the piston by the connecting rod. The rod will get really hot too so use another pair of pliers or just a rolled up piece of paper towel. Dry everything well and rinse it with denatured alcohol.
After this just put some after run oil on the piston and sleeve. Put the engine back together putting after run oil on everything. You will have to break-it-in again. I hope this saves you some money on a new engine or piston and sleeve replacement.


Edited 12-7-05 to add extra info:


I would recomend you err on the side of caution, and go only a little bit tighter, then re-test the fit.. its very easy to redo this method several times to add the extra pinch you require and get a snug fit,but if you go too tight it's a very hard job to get it bigger again..
Edited by: Oblivion
 
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#2 ·
Cool. And to think you can take it to some guys to do the same thing and they will charge you $50 for it... LOL
 
#3 ·
ok oblivion, i tried this out tonight, worked great i reckon te motor
has heaps more compression now. i tryed it on my "new" trx 2.5, the one
that came with the rustler, the one i stuffed but i don't think i done
it properly so i will try again tommorrow night. thanks for the
info, saved me atleast 90 buck so far. if i get the trx 2.5 going then
you saved me a lot more,



thanks

brenton
 
#4 ·
SinnMTA4 said:
ok oblivion, i tried this out tonight, worked great i reckon te motor has heaps more compression now. i tryed it on my "new" trx 2.5, the one that came with the rustler, the one i stuffed but i don't think i done it properly so i will try again tommorrow night. thanks for the info, saved me atleast 90 buck so far. if i get the trx 2.5 going then you saved me a lot more,

thanks
brenton

no probs, glad it worked out for ya mate and thanks for posting your results..
 
#6 ·
If thisworks there some more life in my picco 26 yet parts are slowly
getting harder to get as the motors get bigger but im happy with the
one ive got the driveline can only take so much punishment and im happy
with the performance/reilability ratio ive got.
 
#8 ·
Once i get the TRX2.5 into my rustler, im going to give it a try on my old TRX15pro. Get some more pinch back into the little beast
 
#9 ·
Hey guys. Has anyone got any new experiences to post about this
proceedure ? I'm thinking about giving it a go on my OS CV-R .12 after
i checked it's pinch and found this.. I think i know why it runs a bit
lame




Click me to see the problem
 
#10 ·
tried it on two motors.... one motor i haven't run yet the other i think i didn't "shrink" it enough, it made it a bit easier to start but going to try it again before the end of the week...... hopefully





brenton
 
#11 ·
*grumbles*

Well i tried it on my old Kyosho GS11 sleeve.. Umm Ooops. I made it too
tight then when trying to open the sleave back up the piston got stuck
in there. Scrap 1 engine
 
#13 ·
On the 2nd heating attempt i did try without the clamp. it wasn't very
willing to go in at all. Ahh well. Here's the news anyway. Out of
stupidity i thought i could belt the top of the piston with my plyers
to knock it out while everything was still hot. Nah didn't work.
Eventually i hot dipped the lot. Went out to the garage and made a mini
jig to push the piston out with a vice
it worked. I've reassembled
the hand grenade.. Ahem.. Engine and will try give it a run tomorrow
 
#17 ·
Yeah extra pinch might be good for it.. After it's broken in again it
might actually have some pinch when it's cold. I reckon if i can get it
to start at all the conrod will break before i can complete break in.
I've never blown a engine before.
 
#16 ·
Crash Dummy said:
Hey guys. Has anyone got any new experiences to post about this proceedure ? I'm thinking about giving it a go on my OS CV-R .12 after i checked it's pinch and found this.. I think i know why it runs a bit lame


Click me to see the problem

oh dude! ya can see why its lost its compression with the piston being able to travel that far out the sleeve easily!
 
#19 ·
Well i think i might try the full throttle break in method. That is
start it up then apply full throttle until the revs stay constant.

This provides lots of lubrication and keeps the engine under load at all times.



I seriously don't think it's going to start without a lot of encoragement. AKA very hot heat source blowing on the head.



Just a random thing. I'm pretty sure my sleave got up to 400.C during
the heating process. Another interesting factoid. I'm not 100% sure
whether this sleeve is of a ABC construction. The engine is just so old
it's not even funny. This thing is from the old and nasty early days of
nitro cars.
 
#20 ·
thanks to everyone who tested this method so far and who took the time to post their results in this thread for everyones perusal.


Theresults youpostedhelped me to add atip to the bottom of the original "how to" so others can learn from your experiences, which is what a forum is all about.


 
#21 ·
Hey Oblivion i've even got pictures if you want'em




Good news is this method works. The sleeve is now so tight that it's
hard to get the piston up past the half way mark. Oops. I can't be
bothered fixing it at the moment. The engine was a junker anyway.



My tip. Take it easy when your clamping down. It's better to have it
not quite tight enough rather then too tight. If it's a bit looser then
you would like at least you will still have a better running engine
then before you started. If you clamp it down too tight you'll have
real big problems expanding it again. As i discovered.
 
#23 ·
I had a go on the weekend my piston could stick out of the sleeve at
least 4mm tried the trick described and initally didnt tighten the clip
enough . three tries later and can only push the piston say two thirds
up the sleeve. very impressed yet to stick it in the motor but it
wil be tried for sure. thanks for the info my man
 
#24 ·
Picture time





As you can see it's worn out. It's possible to push the piston right
out the top. Never mind the huge chunk taken out of the exhaust port.
That's just from me mucking about with my dremel ages ago. This engine
is the tester. It gets all the experiements.





Sleeve and hose clamp





Before tightening down the clamp





After





sleeve sitting on the soon to be red hot hot plate. This is important.
I read a hotplate temp of well over 400.C using a temp probe that
normally only goes to 120.C I know for sure that the sleeve hit well
over 200.C






Now quickly dip it into the water but don't drop it. You don't want to bend your precious sleeve



The final steps. Check the piston to liner fitment if it is good then reassemble your engine.





The test mule




It's alive!

And yeah this engine has always been craptastic. Today was the longest it has ever run without stopping.

http://crashdummy.ugbox.net/movies/repinch.wmv



P.S

Sorry to disspoint SinnMTA4. It didn't blow. I don't think this engine
is killable. No really. I think the only thing that will stop it is if
you pour dirt down the carb.




Edited by: Crash Dummy
 
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