Hi all:

In preparation for putting the 2 Vanagon 2.0L engines I'm rebuilding back
together I determined the long/short connecting rods by putting 3 at a
time on a piston pin and comparing one to the other.

The differences seemed pretty minor but, a foolish consistency being the
hobgoblin of little minds, I thought I'd also try and determine the
long/short pistons, to match up with the short/long rods.  But, I can't
quite figure out how to do it!

My first thought was to put each piston top-down on a piece of plate
glass I have, push the piston pin out of the piston a little ways, and
then measure the difference between the top of the piston and the top of
the pin with my inside micrometer.  But, this distance is shorter than
the shortest measurement I can make with the micrometer.

So how does one go about measuring the length of a piston?  Actually, I
don't need to know absolute length, just relative length.

TIA.

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Tom Young               young@sherlock.SIMS.Berkeley.EDU
Lafayette, CA  94549    '81 Vanagon
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