Hasting Oil Rings

I recently bought Hepolite pistons and rings for my Commando. I was told that the rings were made by Hastings, but I also have read that this isn't always the case.

The oil control rings that came with the pistons seem wrong. They are a two piece style oil control ring, with a stiff inner spring that expands agains a cast iron outer ring. The amount of tension created by the inner spring is crazy. It is almost impossible to close the ring gap by hand. This is what they look like:

I can't see any practical way of compressing the oil ring enough to install it in the bore. Never mind how much drag the ring will place on the bore. I saw some earlier discussions similar to this but the expanding ring seemed to be a different style.

I am thinking of trimming the inner spring length to achieve a more reasonable expanding force.
Anybody else recently had this problem?

Stephen Hill said:

I recently bought Hepolite pistons and rings for my Commando. I was told that the rings were made by Hastings, but I also have read that this isn't always the case.

The oil control rings that came with the pistons seem wrong. They are a two piece style oil control ring, with a stiff inner spring that expands agains a cast iron outer ring. The amount of tension created by the inner spring is crazy. It is almost impossible to close the ring gap by hand. This is what they look like:

I can't see any practical way of compressing the oil ring enough to install it in the bore. Never mind how much drag the ring will place on the bore. I saw some earlier discussions similar to this but the expanding ring seemed to be a different style.

I am thinking of trimming the inner spring length to achieve a more reasonable expanding force.
Anybody else recently had this problem?

Click to expand...

A few years ago when Hastings still made Norton rings, it was true that they were packaged with Hepolite pistons. Since they are not longer available that had to stop. You can still find some old sets of Hastings rings for sale - The Bonneville Shop still has a few. The rings that come with Hepolite today are UK made and as I understand it, by the same company that made them when they were used as OEM.

The rings that come with the Hepolite pistons can be installed and it's a very bad idea to shorten the spring. My 73-year-old arthritic fingers can do it and have done several this year. Here's how:
1) Prepare the engine for the cylinders including installing the base gasket
2) Rig the cylinders so I can suspend them from my engine hoist.
3) Then turn the cylinders on their side.
4) Put in one circlip in each piston - the ones that will be in the center of the cylinder.
5) Install and orient the rings
6) Install each piston into its cylinder until the pin hole is near the cylinder skirt.
6) Hoist the cylinders over the engine and lower until I can push both pins into the pistons.
7) Install the outside circlips
8) Lower the cylinders far enough to get the nuts started
9) Continue normally.

I did not "invent" this method. Others have described it but with a helper rather than a hoist. I've done it that way, but coordinating two people to get everything aligned is harder, IMHO, than doing it alone with a hoist.

The ends of the springs are made so that they butt against each other and don't overlap when in the piston, to maintain pressure on the wall. If you trim off one of the ends, the spring can then overlap and no longer seal.

Use a pair of ring compressors, along with a forked shaped board on top of the crankcase that the pistons sit on. Works a treat.
Been doing it that way for years. See section C33 Fig 42 in the workshop manual

Have you got the correct size ,rings did they take much to gap , you can hook up a piston to a fish scale and measure the amount of kgs required to move it in the bore , then maybe check with Hastings , email them and see , if they have any figures for you .

Stephen Hill said:

I recently bought Hepolite pistons and rings for my Commando. I was told that the rings were made by Hastings, but I also have read that this isn't always the case.

The oil control rings that came with the pistons seem wrong. They are a two piece style oil control ring, with a stiff inner spring that expands agains a cast iron outer ring. The amount of tension created by the inner spring is crazy. It is almost impossible to close the ring gap by hand. This is what they look like:

I can't see any practical way of compressing the oil ring enough to install it in the bore. Never mind how much drag the ring will place on the bore. I saw some earlier discussions similar to this but the expanding ring seemed to be a different style.

I am thinking of trimming the inner spring length to achieve a more reasonable expanding force.
Anybody else recently had this problem?

Click to expand...

I had the very same problem recently, & was so concerned at how tight the engine was to turn over, I pulled it apart & shortened the spring. First I tried 3mm & then 5mm, which worked perfectly. The engine does not smoke. With well over forty years of building & working on engines, there is in my opinion, a manufacturing mistake with these oil ring sets.
About ten years ago I had the opposite problem with a set of Trident oil rings which had too little tension, & that engine smoked from the minute I started it. Cured with a decent set of oil rings.

Matchless said:

I had the very same problem recently, & was so concerned at how tight the engine was to turn over, I pulled it apart & shortened the spring. First I tried 3mm & then 5mm, which worked perfectly. The engine does not smoke. With well over forty years of building & working on engines, there is in my opinion, a manufacturing mistake with these oil ring sets.
About ten years ago I had the opposite problem with a set of Trident oil rings which had too little tension, & that engine smoked from the minute I started it. Cured with a decent set of oil rings.

Click to expand...

I also repaired a Trident where two piece oil rings were recently installed. Smoked like a pig.

Old ring sets came with a small cardboard gauge which we used to set the ring groove depth for when doing a ring job in the lathe , the early type 4 piece rings goove depth is Important, but not for 3 piece .

These oil rings are a little different from what I have used in the past.
The main part is a hollow cast iron ring, which is gapped correctly, and fits in the bore with a light expansive pressure.

The internal spring is the wierd piece. It is a stiff small diameter spring coil that sits inside the hollow cast iron ring.
The internal spring is held together at the joint by a smaller piece of spring steel.
This is not the usual waffle style spring where the ends are free floating.


In its "relaxed" state, with the internal spring installed, the end gap on the cast iron ring is about 3/8".

The internal spring is so stiff that when you compress the outer ring together, there is virtually no compression of the intenal spring.

This makes it almost impossible to close the ring gap on the outer cast iron ring enough to install it.

As it comes out of the box, I am not sure I can install it. And I am concerned about bore wear over time.

The internal spring is easily removed from the cast iron ring. And it is easy to pull the coil apart by sliding out the wire that holds it together.

The individual coils are about 1/16" long. I think I will try removing one coil at a time and see what happens to the overall diameter and the resulting expansive force.

I have a call out to Hastings Rings. Will let you know if they have anything useful to say.

Nearly 40 years ago I tried to fit some Hepolite Apex 3 piece oil rings on an 850. The top and bottom rings were thin steel, kept apart by a corrugated inner ring that they also sat on. Even with proper ring compressors the barrel would not go over these rings, the top and bottom rings on their own went in easily so I shortened the inner corrugated ring by 1 bend. Went together well and the engine is still running well with no smoke.

Top and bottom rings were like this.



Ring that kept them apart was similar to this but with a more complicated look



and then assembled 3 piece looked like this




Found this which shows how the corrugated ring held the top and bottom rings.

I've had wrong piston rings supplied along with pistons of same make. Wiseco 1196cc "big bore" kit.

Funny how you just know when you have been handed a POS. No matter what they tell you.

Matchless said:

I had the very same problem recently, & was so concerned at how tight the engine was to turn over, I pulled it apart & shortened the spring. First I tried 3mm & then 5mm, which worked perfectly. The engine does not smoke. With well over forty years of building & working on engines, there is in my opinion, a manufacturing mistake with these oil ring sets.
About ten years ago I had the opposite problem with a set of Trident oil rings which had too little tension, & that engine smoked from the minute I started it. Cured with a decent set of oil rings.

Click to expand...

A few years ago I had the same problem with 2 Norton motors. The problem is certainly in the oil rings. I always use Hastings rings but these were impossible to fit. The tension was incredibly stiff. It would have required pounding the cylinders on to the pistons. Bite the bullet and buy new rings and try again. Do not micky mouse. In discussing this problem with Jaye Strait, he told me to always use the gold oil control rings...they are a lower tension. Did not realize there was a high and low tension oil ring. These were 3 piece oil rings. Hastings screwed up. Do not use.

I had the same issue with Hastings rings some years ago, and when I said I'd cropped the expanders in order to get them to fit I got slagged off for it.
It's OK, hun - I'm over it now
Out of the packet, the cylinders simply wouldn't go over the oil rings.
I've had no issues with recent Goetze rings as supplied with Hepolite pistons, although after encountering issues with my original 1970 pistons accepting new rings, I was pointed to the service bulletin. SN N46 identified early pistons were recommended to be replaced with later types with deeper ring grooves, which accepted the new 'S.E.' spring expander type oil rings from engine number 146584.
Shallower oil rings are still available and are also used on Powermax pistons. I need to check to see if Dunstall pistons are the same.

Someone has handed me his 750 project to finish. Two days ago it was time to start it and I found a lot of resistance in kicking it over. I know what the primary is like and the transmission so it appears to be the motor. I am wondering if the tight ring issue is in this motor. I did not build it, that was done by a shop back east along with the transmission. It's difficult to spin it over fast enough to start. I took the plugs out and it's still stiff. Yes, there's slack in the primary chain.

I decided that the oil rings were under too much expansive pressure, so I shortened the inner spring one small coil at a time until I had removed about 5 mm. At that point by feel the cast iron ring had the "right" amount of drag on the cylinder walls. I noticed that Matchless (above) shortened the spring by about the same amount. Now I get to see how it works.

I heard back from a rep from Hastings. At one time they supplied 3 piece oil rings that were used in Nortons. They said the 2 piece oil ring currently contained in the Hepolite piston set is not made by Hastings.

According to Wassell, who owns Hepolite: "Some time back we were using Hastings rings but for the past 4-5 years we have been sourcing from the UK ( part of the old AE federal mogul group ) The original manufacturer for Hepolite /AE ring sets , these kits contain the spiral spring expander on the oil rings."

For purposes of accuracy, the suppliers should stop referring to the rings supplied with the Hepolite Norton piston sets as Hastings rings.
None of which changes the fact that for some people the 2 piece oil control rings in the Hepolite piston sets present a fitment issue.

Stephen Hill said:

I heard back from a rep from Hastings. At one time they supplied 3 piece oil rings that were used in Nortons. They said the 2 piece oil ring currently contained in the Hepolite piston set is not made by Hastings.

According to Wassell, who owns Hepolite: "Some time back we were using Hastings rings but for the past 4-5 years we have been sourcing from the UK ( part of the old AE federal mogul group ) The original manufacturer for Hepolite /AE ring sets , these kits contain the spiral spring expander on the oil rings."

For purposes of accuracy, the suppliers should stop referring to the rings supplied with the Hepolite Norton piston sets as Hastings rings.
None of which changes the fact that for some people the 2 piece oil control rings in the Hepolite piston sets present a fitment issue.

Click to expand...

Reread post #2, this thread.

Thanks Greg. I think we can agree that the current stock of Hepolite pistons no longer come with Hastings rings. What was confusing for me was that three suppliers in Canada told me that they were selling Hepolite pistos with Hastings rings. That might be true, if they were selling old stock. According to my conversation with the Hastings rep, when the Heoplite pistons came with Hastings rings, it was always a 3 piece ring.

To add further confusion, in my original post (#1 above) is a video showing that Hastings made a 2 piece oil ring that looks identical to the 2 piece oil ring currently supplied by Hepolite, and made by AE/Federal/Mogul. It was just never supplied for Nortons.

Then we wade into the swamp of "do you use the two piece oil ring AS IS that comes in the Hepolite box".
I take your point that it is possible to install it.
However, I fall in to the small camp of folks who have decided that the internal spring is specified or manufactured incorrectly.
So at my peril, I shortened it. I am not recommending this. Just reporting it.
And I'll see how it goes.

I think I'll buy rings from a different manufacturer.