430 piston install

Rebuilding a 430 mel for a 63 Lincoln just got the rings on pistons than realized how the hell do i install the pistons? Do i buy a cheap compressor and cut it to fit the 10 degrees?

Slurm go to the fe technical forum There is a fellow Royce Belcher all he builds are MELs he would have some suggestions for you .Someone on the old fe forum would have some ideas as well .Good luck with the old iron ! Doug:afro:

thank you for the direction, got one in using a couple of feeler gauges and a lot of patience. Thinking i should of open up the wedge part of the block a couple of thousands.

Used a band style installer. Put it on the piston with long sleeve down, tap on it lightly to seat against top of cylinder. Worked great

slurm wrote:Used a band style installer. Put it on the piston with long sleeve down, tap on it lightly to seat against top of cylinder. Worked great  

Yes ... the top angled deck was counterbored on the 430 I worked with so, there was a fine ledge for the band type ring compressor to butt against.

I don't know if all the MEL blocks were like that.