Knowing about types of cylinder wall damage will help you timely repair and maintain your engine longer and better.
The damage to the cylinder wall can hinder the maintenance and replacement of the new one. Thus, you can identify the exact damage type to find the most proper solutions.
This also helps you save money to fix your cylinder’s problems. Besides, you feel more secure about operating your vehicle after determining the damage types and giving them a complete repair.
We will explain what you should know about damage types on the cylinder liner wall.
What Is A Cylinder Wall?
The cylinder wall is a layer covering a cylinder or engine and connects with airflow to supply the main engine cooling method in an air-cooled engine.
A cylinder under the wall is the space that allows the piston to transfer. It gets powered by the energy from the air-fuel mixture at the combustion chamber temperature.
What Are Types Of Cylinder Wall Damage?
There are common damages on the cylinder wall you shouldn’t ignore. They can be arching, overheating, corrosion, dents, misfire, hydrolocked, and oil overfilled.
To handle this problem, you can weld or pin it. Below are the details of each type.
Arcing Damage
Arcing damage is one of the most common cylinder wall damages that can cause a quick heat rise to destroy the cylinder and cause cylinder liner damage.
This damage originates from welding operations and negatively affects the cylinder wall. It also produces a pressure relief and explosion to activate.
Arching can result in faster dissociation in the engine to generate larger injuries and destruction when this problem happens on a fuel gas cylinder, including acetylene.
For this to occur, the cylinder must be part of the electrical circuit connecting the work to the welding machine.
If you find an arc-damaged cylinder, you must remove it from your vehicle and return it to the supplier.
Overheating Damage
Overheating is no way an acceptable cylinder wall damage that an engine can sustain. A hot cylinder wall may cause seals and gaskets to leak and make metal components warp and bend.
Besides, it can also cause metal components to seize the cylinder and fuse together to reduce the engine heat.
You should regularly monitor the cooling system and pay attention to the temperature gauge on your vehicle to avoid such damage.
An overheating engine can make your car not start as it destroys your vehicle quickly.
So once you sense something abnormal, you should look for a safe location to pull over and turn your automobile off rapidly to prevent your engine from further damage.
Dents
Another damage that can happen to the cylinder wall is dents. It originates from mishandling or impact, weakening the cylinder wall and making it easy to crack.
Thus, you must check the whole engine to determine whether it contains dents. If you find any signs of dents, take your vehicle to the auto shop for a better repair or timely replacement from the mechanic.
Corrosion
This type is one of the popular damages on the cylinder wall. The main causes that can corrode the cylinder are salt, corrosives, moisture, and other cylinder materials.
Corrosion often happens when the cylinder’s bottom touches the floor or ground. So, you should store cylinders in a dry place, such as a concrete surface, to prevent this problem.
Misfire Damage
Misfire is an explosion taking place outside the combustion cylinders.
Fuel and air in the engine can combust to support the power in pushing on the pistons and spinning the crankshaft in these cylinders to move your vehicle forward.
But, if the engine timing, air, bad fuel ratio, or spark ignition has a problem, it can cause a misfire.
A misfiring engine can become a huge problem that develops serious effects over time. It may damage the catalytic converter, which is costly to replace.
Hydrolocked Damage
This type can occur when your engine captures the water or gets wet. It will appear if you try to drive your vehicle through deep water places such as flood areas.
At this time, water will get sucked into your vehicle and destroy the whole engine.
If you use modern cars with low exhaust ports and feature intake, water can easily go into the engine through these parts and cause hydrolocked destruction.
The pistons are responsible for compressing the air-fuel mixture in your engine’s cylinders. Thus, they can not take responsibility if being dipped into the water.
This problem will lead to cracked and bent valves, shafts, and blow holes in the engine.
You can turn around if the roads ahead have flash floods to reduce the costly engine replacement or repair.
Overfilled Damage
Although insufficient engine oil can cause engine damage, overfilled oil also destroys your cylinder wall.
You can detect it when there is a burning oil smell through vents. If the engine is too full of oil, its moving parts will submerge.
The oil can get foamy or aerated when the crankshaft lobes take the oil into a foam.
If this bubbly engine cylinder oil quality is not proper, it can not protect the moving parts and lead to damage to your engine blocks.
What Causes Cylinder Wall Damage?
It originates from carbon deposits inside the cylinder when the valve blocks. When the rotating crankshaft takes oil from a pan and flings it along the cylinder wall, it will lubricate the wall.
If the valves are closed, carbon deposits can break off and cause the cylinder wall damage during a bad combustion process.
How To Repair Cylinder Wall Damage?
You can repair cylinder wall damage with two simple methods: welding and pinning.
You must pay an expensive cost if you want to use welding as the proper method. Welding will discard the scored cylinder by filling it, but it is also complicated.
Another method is pinning, which is affordable and simple to prevent the cylinder damage from deteriorating.
What Causes A Piston To Break?
Various causes can crack piston and prevent your engine from lasting a lifetime.
During operation, a forced fracture from a collision of crankshaft or valves when the engine is working can make piston crowns get a fatigue fracture.
Besides, a piston can break due to overheating default combustion, bent oil injection jet, improper piston installation, faulty cooling system, or normal wear and tear.
What Are Cracked Piston Symptoms?
The first symptom of the cracked piston is excessive oil consumption. This is a popular sign you can realize that the pistons get a break.
A cracked piston may cause excessive oil consumption since the oil lubricates the piston within the cylinder bores to bypass the piston rings and enter the combustion chamber surfaces.
Besides, a cracked piston can decrease the engine power, including decreased cylinder engine compression or burning engine oil.
Even a small piston crack changes its shape and enhances the resistance between it and the cylinder wall. This affects the engine’s smooth performance and causes excess heat to decrease engine power.
If you see blue or gray smoke from your vehicle’s exhaust, this is another symptom of a cracked piston.
Piston damage and wear or a cracked piston changing the shape can lead to slapping noise or banging on the engine top.
Conclusion
The above are the common types of cylinder wall damage you should keep an eye on. These damages can result in a negative impact on your engine and reduce its performance.
Thus, if you find abnormal symptoms inside the engine, you must check the cylinder wall immediately to identify the primary causes.
This will help you find solutions such as a thorough fix, timely replacement, or complete maintenance.
Understand the damage types above to learn how to prevent terrible engine problems and keep it running longer and better.