I saw a piston clock on ebay for silly money and thought what's the point
in buying one when you can easily make one for much much less

all you will need is

1 piston
1 clock insert (can be brought here http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/55mm-fit-50-or-1-31-32-h...)
Measure your hole first before buying mine meassure at 2" but the clock says 2" but comes smaller and has a rubber ring around it so it fits 2" which was perfect you can buy these cheaper but i liked this design this seller has cheaper different ones tho

Super glue

tools you will need are

1 small flat headed screw driver

Step 1: Dismantling Your Piston.

Right so i'm assuming you have the piston out of the engine

Please don't go and destroy a good engine for this project just pick a piston up from a scrappy or broken engine

first give it a good clean so you can see what you are doing then

locate the snap ring and using your small flat head screw driver prise it out freeing the gudgeon pin (be careful when doing this as they tend to ping out at speed, goggles are advisable)

then slide the gudeon pin out of the piston this should release the actual piston from the con rod

undo the two bolts on the top and it should release the cap like in the picture there will be shells in this part they can be discarded

There is a picture at the end of this Instructables showing you the break down of the piston

Step 2: Cleaning You Piston

Right so this part is pretty simple fill up a washing up bowl with hot water and soap and scrub until there is no dirty left

(an optional part if you want the piston darker is to oven heat it to dry it it seems to darken the metal down but be careful as the piston stays hot for ages)

Step 3: Assembly

So now you have a broken apart piston that is nice and clean and dry

time to put it back together its exactly the reverse of how you took it apart

stand con rod into piston

slide gudgeon pin into con rod and piston

push the snap clip back into place (be careful this can be tricky and can again ping off but with a little persistence it will go back in)

then put the cap and bolts back on

now stand you piston on its top and stand the con rod upright
while holding it still put some super glue drops down the side of the con rod making sure your con rod stays straight while it sets this only takes a few minutes if that

Step 4: Inserting the Clock Face

right so now your con rod is glued and set in its place unscrew your cap slightly and insert you clock face

Measure your hole first before buying clock face

my hole measured at 2" but the clock says 2" but comes smaller and has a rubber ring around it so it fits 2" which was perfect you can buy these cheaper but I liked this design this seller has cheaper different ones though

And your done

Pretty simple job really took me about 20 minutes from start to finish excluding waiting for my clock face to turn up