Filing Ring End Gap

Hey, real quick, I wanna run a tech tip by you for your engine assembly. It's something that's pretty crucial, and you have to check it, so. Let's say you sent your cylinders out to the machine shop. You've had everything bored. Now you're going to put the motor together and you realize you've got to set the ring end gap. So, it's a very simple procedure; push the ring down in the cylinder, take your piston, just push it down on the bore a little bit. Go ahead and take your feeler gauge. Now the ring manufacturer specifies four thousandths of an inch per cylinder bar. So, you know, 3.875 times four is roughly 15 thousandths of an inch. Set your feeler gauge. You go down in here and you check it. Now it's a little tight, that's where your dilemma comes in. You need to open up the ring end gap. Now, how are you gonna do that? Go out and buy a $300 ring end gap filing tool for a one-time procedure? No, here's a simple way to do it. Go ahead and put a file in a vice. I've put some duct tape on there to protect my file but- Go ahead and do that. And then simply, on one side of the ring, you're gonna just put it on here and just file on this thing, keeping it nice and flat. Basically take off, you know, whatever you need. One, two, three thou' on the one side. Go ahead, stick it back in the bore. Push it back down in. Recheck it. If the ring end gap is good, then you're good to go. If it needs a little more, go ahead back, take a little more off. That's how you set a ring end gap.