I had to replace a head gasket on my wife's 95 "W" blazer. The cylinder had some roughness from corrosion from some coolant which had been sitting in it, so I figured it needed to be taken out. It was about 1/2 inch high by 2.5 inches wide crescent shaped area right at the bottom of the stroke. I used a piece of 1000 grit sandpaper and lightly went over it til it seemed like it was gone.

The surface of that area definitely seems a little different from the surrounding areas since the glaze is gone (when I run a fingernail over it). I'm hoping to avoid having to get a cylinder micrometer just to check since it seems like I didn't take that much off. If it has to be honed, could it be done just with a flex hone or would it need a stone honing and a cross hatching? Any advice from somebody with some exp with this sort of thing is GREATLY appreciated.

 

To properly hone the cylinders, you should remove the pistons and re-ring it. I doubt you took off enough metal to say so with 1000 grit paper. I would just leave it as is.

How bad of a ridge is there at the top of the cylinder walls? If there is not much of a ridge, you should

A flex hone should be used to put the proper cross hatch pattern in if you were going to do that.

 

The ridge didn't seem too much, just from feeling it. There were some deposits on it that I cleaned off, but besides that I didn't pay too much attention to it. Could I just put a straightedge against the wall and slip some feeler gauge in there to check?

Seems like part of your reply got deleted somehow;

"If there is not much of a ridge, you should...."

 

I was moving things around in the order of how my response was worded and must have removed the last bit.

It should have read, "..., you should be good".