A co-worker, who also works another job at a Kubota Tractor Dealer, was telling me how Kubota uses a "Lateral Honing Process" on there liners. I asked him what the difference was, he really couldn't explain it, but says most of the tractors he rebuilds still have crosshatching and the cylinders look great, it's usually another component failure that causes the rebuild. So can someone explain what "Lateral Honing" means? Chris

Mods if this isn't advanced delete it

 

sure thing this is advanced.... now this is purely speculation.... but anyway

I'd wonder if they're talking about like compressing the hone's arms and sticking it into the bore, then honing, compressing the arms again and pulling it out, to make a series of circles in the cylinder instead of the infamous crosshatch pattern

a series of parrallel circles would end up working as a file and take off a significant amount of piston ring and cyl wall to seat quickly i'd assume, or seize the piston... one or the other, and work similar to the crosshatch except it would in no way turn the piston ring as a traditional crosshatch might have the ability to do....

However I would not rev this motor high until the rings were completely seated for fear that too high a piston velocity would put too much vertcal stress on the piston rings and cause them to want to shear... where in a crosshatch they would probably just rotate...

did they say anything about the engine block or the pistons or anything else?

 

These are diesel engine tho correct? The rings work a little different

Also I don't know much about kubota but I did search this and I saw something where Komatsu or one of those big equipment companies developed the process with Hitachi...Haven't found anything that explains the process, seems interesting

 

Actually guys I got my words mixed up apparently

The term is Plateau Honing

Google it, pretty interesting reading

 

diesel engines are a bit different but the principal is the same. Never hear the term Plateau Honing but I did some research on it and your right, it is intresting reading.

I'm a Diesel mechanic for Caterpillar. Field service, engine and power systems specialist. I rebuild engines all the time but most of the stuff I work on we dont do our own honing. Cat has a very good exchange program and I just order remanufactured cyl packs. Comes with a liner, piston and rod assembly already installed in the pack. Pull the old pistons out and pull the liners second. When going back together if you have 2 guys on a 3400 series engine you can just drop the entire "pack" in as a unit. 1 guy underneath to hold the rod and guide it toward the crank and another on top with a liner installer pushin it in. Experiencied guys can do this all relativly easy on a 6 cyl but any vee engine its a little tough cause the rod falls down.

its funny because there is not "break in" for rings with us. The last 3516 I rebuilt (16cyl ~2500hp) I fired it up and put it to work under ful load. never looked back.

only a few years ago we used to hone liners ourselves alot more. Still do on ocasion. We buy a ball hone and go to town. Not much measuring involved. engines that big you dont have suck critical tolerances to worry about.

 

Almost all motors are plateau honed.

http://www.aa1car.com/library/honing98.htm
http://www.babcox.com/editorial/ar/ar90058.htm

 

The last motor i build was just honed and not bored...not sure if it was done this way but, The guy that honed it recomended a moly ring set and use a regular top ring. So I tried it..there was no oil consumption at all and the engine ran pretty well...I don't know if the other rings sealed quicker or not.
This builder only does circle track engines and I'm not sure why he wanted me to do it that way...does this type honing have anything to do with that or is it the reverse? Use old school rings with old school hone?

 

Open up an LT1 or any equally late model motor and you are almost guaranteed to find crosshatch WELL after 100K.
Even without MachinistOne's post I would have said nothing special going on with the tractors.

BIG part of the reduced wear is the better fueling of the sequential port injection. Other fueling methods wash a lot of oil off the walls by being excessivly rich at cold startup.