Now being a man of knat endowed stature I have never had as much trouble putting a piston into a well oiled cylider as I have today. I took the cylinder off of the LT50 and am having trouble putting it back in. Seems like I am caught on the rings. Anybody know a trick to slide this bugger back in there?

 

You are using a piston ring compressor right?

 

You need a ring compressor and the rings go in a certain position. Some/most pistons have a pin in the groove of the ring slots and thats how you line up the opening of the rings.

 

i was just waitin to see if he was using a ring compressor first.

 

There is also a front and back side of the piston. Some have arrows on the top and some will have a dot or notch.

 

if the rings are lined up in the pins it should got right in . with out putiing the rings in the piston with the gap centered around the pins you will break the rings or the piston. the harder you push the more it cost to fix.

 

Piston Ring Compressor?

Line up the Rings? Nope and Nope.

Sorry solar no tools here just shere redneck drive and purpose.

Good thing its dark and I was called in for dinner. In fact I broke the top ring trying to shove the piston back into the cylinder. Lord only knows where I will find one locally! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

How do I recognize the proper ring postion? Dumb Question.... What the H$#@ is a Ring Compressor?

 

A ring compresser is an adjustable band that goes around the piston, and holds the rings in their groves. It is adjusted tight enough to hold the rings in, but loose enough so that when you start sliding the piston into the cylender, the piston will slide through the band, and completely into the cylender (the band will be in contact with the top of the cylender when doing this).

If you can't find a ring comrpesser, a series if screw type hose clamps can be used. Use enough hose clamps (end to end) to encircle the piston.

Somewhere in each of the ring groves, there is a very small notch. One end of each ring will have a corresponding "relieved" notch. You MUST match these two together, or the ring won't fully seat into it's groove. These notches stop the ring from rotating in it's grove.

 

So I got the thing back on today. Thanks for all the help. Figure I'll share the side light that this created. While I had the cylinder in hand I observed that the exaust port was a bit munged up so I got out the dremmel and cleaned it out. This got me thinking about the porting I have been wanting to have done. So I got on google and read up about porting and felt comfortable that I could handle it. I then went to a local mechanic that is legendary around here for top end work and asked a few more questions. His advise made the uncertain task very easy. Go down with the intake and up with the exaust. He told me to leave the intake port a little rough so the gas will still atomize before it gets into the motor and to smooth the exaughst port untill it is mirror finish. In the end I opened up the intake port 3+ millimeters to mate proper with the intake and opened the exaust a whoping 8 millimeters to mate with the CT pipe that is on it. I opened both ports about a millimeter and a half inside the cylinder being carefull not to change the shape. End result is... a huge mid range gain and a little more top end. Hard to say on the top end for sure because I was pulled over by the local PD for riding up and down my street so I never really got a chance to get it good and hot and stay on the pipe.

Get out your dremmels guys its worth your time!

 

I had the same problem. The cylinder is tapered the bottom and there isn’t any room for a ring compressor. What I did to get it back together was remove the piston from the connecting rod and inserted it into the cylinder from the top. Then I pushed the piston down until there was enough room to slide the wrist pin back on the connecting rod. I just had enough room to slide the pin in. I tried to use a hose clamp but because of the taper it wouldn’t work.