Merc V8 engine question
 

Has anyone ever had there pistons re-ringed on one of the V8 merc engines? How many miles had the engine done? Was there considerble lip in the bore? did it need to have a larger set of pitons put in.

Just asking for curiosity sake :)

Are you referring to the M116 3.5 litre (iron block)? I suspect you might be. Unless abused (ie. infrequent oil changes) they will last a long time (like most MB engines). I have owned my '73 350SLC for almost 21 years. I don't know the exact distance it has travelled as I purchased it cheaply showing much lower kilometres than it had obviously travelled. Whilst I have only put about 150,000km on it, many have been short trips in heavy traffic. I also drive it fairly hard. To compensate for this I have usually changed the oil (Castrol GTX2 20W-50) every 2,500km and the oil filter every 5,000km. I suspect it may now have covered at least 350,000km (especially when considering the other work it has needed including transmission and diff). About 120,000km (18 years) ago I removed the heads for a valve job and to replace the valve guides and seals (this is typically a 200-250,000km job) and fitted a new timing chain and tensioner. At that time the bores looked like new with good cross-hatching and no lip. Since then the engine has required no major work and is showing no symptoms of wear in the pistons, rings or bores. It could probably use a new timing chain again and possibly another set of valve stem seals if I wanted to be really fussy. An iron M116 with worn pistons rings or bores has either travelled high mileage or has been abused.