Stromgren Piston Groove Tool

So going through some of my grandfathers tools, I found this neat little tool. It was caked in a nasty rust and after some cleaning I could see the patent number 2,018,930.

This example appears to be manufactured by the "Sta-Put" tool company. I haven't been able to find much info on them.

[If I remember correctly this tool is a Piston Ring Groove Cleaner Reamer

I found a re-groover made by Wilkening Mfg Co called a "WILCO" this morning. I was looking for an appropriate place to post it and this thread will do the trick. Hope you don't mind, Slinger646.

There were a lot of these on the market in the 30's. I have another one made by Zim (for Hastings), and one made by K-D.

I can't find out much information on Wilkening. They were in operation from the 1930's through the 1960's, specializing exclusively in pistons it seems, i.e., rings, ring assemblies, accessories, etc., with several patents to their credit. This cleaner has three different size bits.

I'm a little confused by the data plate on this one. Not sure if they were a subsidiary of General Motors, or GM was their customer, or what.

hi, i posted this 1 in the plomb thread, looks like slinger's and mine came from the same mold.

Ricky Joe said:

Ahhh yes! Back when carbon build-up was a fact of life, and every engine rebuild required a significant amount of cleaning! Those things worked fine if you were lucky enough to not really need them. On really significant build-up or hard carbon, a piece of broken ring would work as well, if not better.

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This is what we used in the shop's I worked in.Break a ring and grind an edge.This worked better than any tool I ever saw.