dropped a piston! :( and other questions relating to engine.

I was removing the pistons out of the cylinder bores due to an earlier issue with the connecting rods, as I was getting them ready to take to the machine shop.
Upon removing piston #5 it slid out faster than I could reach over and it fell on my garage floor (concrete).

After being bummed that I dropped the piston I went to grab it and looked at it. It was not cracked, nothing chipped off.

Due to my work schedule I have the tendancy to work on my stuff late at night, (11pm-4am), so as you can imagine im not 100% mentally clear all of the time, but Its what I have to do to work on the car.

So that night as I was putting everything back in, I forgot to inspect the piston again for good measure, or take it to the machine shop to have them check it out. I simply just put it back in.

So now after almost being done, it is all starting to dawn upon me...

The way I see it is, Its better to fix things now, than after the engine is installed and I have to yank it out again. Heres the thing though, this is my first complete engine rebuild. So with that said, I know some of this may be just over worrying on my behalf due to the fact that this is my first engine rebuild. I could be overthinking it.

about the piston, I didn't see anything to alarm me after my inspection. Therefore being my reasoning for why I decided to install it back in. As stated above I didn't get it inspected by a machine shop, so now I'm concerned because I don't want a shattered piston, but, like I said, my first complete rebuild... I may be overthinking it.

Why I didn't just get new pistons? Im trying to keep the cost down, which is why I hunted down an engine that could just use a re ring. By getting new pistons I would have to get new rings and get the pistons installed to the connecting rods. Seeing that the engine is already .060 over, I wouldn't want to have to maybe bore it to accomodate the new pistons vs using what was already in there.

So the ultimate question is...

-Should I be okay? or is this piston going to just die?

Should I just run it and see how it goes? Just shut it off at first sign of an issue to not ruin things terribly bad, yank it out, chock it up to experience and just do it again?

That is a worst case I believe. I may be overthinking this whole thing entirely. It could very well just start up and run A-Ok, with no damage that was actually done to the piston.

I wish I could post a picture but I forgot to snap one and the engine already has the heads on. So unless I can unbolt the heads to take pictures and still be able to reuse the new fel pro head gaskets, pictures are gonna be tough to come by.

Other question...

I hear mixed things on reusing the rods, mains,and head bolts. My machinist is an old timer... I asked him before if I should buy new bolts. He told me for a stock rebuild, nah, dont worry about it. So ive reused head bolts before with no issue. With this build he didnt say anything to me about getting new bolts.

Can I reuse the bolts for a stock 460?


thanks!

Forgot to mention the piston appears to be the stock ford replacement pistons

Hows the garage floor

I doubt there's much to worry about. If it landed on the top, it likely would've bent the top ring land making the ring a tight fit. If it landed on a skirt, the damage would probably be obvious. Since you didn't notice a problem with the rings, and didn't see any other obvious damage, I'd run it. It's a stocker...and I've seen some awful junk go together and run just fine.

Garage floor is fine, yea it was okay looking. To be honest it looked untouched.

My brother broke a piston before so I was a little like "ahhhh" when it happened but I checkes it out and it looked fine, no red flags. It actually was like 100% normal unless I missed something.

maverick wrote:I doubt there's much to worry about.  If it landed on the top, it likely would've bent the top ring land making the ring a tight fit.  If it landed on a skirt, the damage would probably be obvious.  Since you didn't notice a problem with the rings, and didn't see any other obvious damage, I'd run it.  It's a stocker...and I've seen some awful junk go together and run just fine.

X2

I know what you're talking about having to work late I have to do the same thing working 2nd shift

69F100 wrote:

maverick wrote:I doubt there's much to worry about.  If it landed on the top, it likely would've bent the top ring land making the ring a tight fit.  If it landed on a skirt, the damage would probably be obvious.  Since you didn't notice a problem with the rings, and didn't see any other obvious damage, I'd run it.  It's a stocker...and I've seen some awful junk go together and run just fine.

X2

I know what you're talking about having to work late I have to do the same thing working 2nd shift

X3. Working on the car until 5am on a weekend or sometimes a weeknight here. Have to be back in to work at 6am.


I would run it. I've had one with part of the piston skirt broke off and it ran fine. Probably was on borrowed time but.....

Run her ass!!

Cool yea I'm just gonna run it! Everything should be fine, I think I may be over thinking it.

So I will run it and shut it off at the first sign of destruction lol if that's the case....

Yea it sucks that I have to work on it so late but currently that's all the time that work allows me. At least currently.