How long can oil control rings be exposed to Vaseline when assembling the engine before starting the engine? I broke a oil control ring and need to source another outer metal oil control ring and am unable to continue until I do.

 

How the hell do you break an oil control ring?

Vaseline is made from petroleum, the same as the oil the ring is trying to control.

 

lol
no worries mine sat for a year and it probably could sit for 20.

 

Yeah mine sat quite a while too. I can't imagine how one would get broken, if it wasn't seated properly you'd definitely notice when you tried to torque down the stack. Anyway, shouldn't be too hard to source, I had to replace all of mine and had no problem getting them from Mazda. They were expensive AF though.

 

I was able to get a replacement and got confirmation that the Vaseline won't harm the rings. I was nervous but everything went fine afterwards and engine is assembled now and will be installed soon. Not my finest moment, thanks for your guys' insight.