How do I fit motorcycle piston rings without breaking them?

Hi,if ive needed piston rings in the past thay ask make and modal and thay sell you them,or you could go to a enginering ferm with one of your pistons so thay can match the size.

Normally the arrow faces the exhaust side. I've never seen 2 arrows?

yes 500 miles and re torque the engine if you did it yourself

Your question is if the pistons and rings off of a VTR will fit your VT. Chances are they will, but IMO this isn't a good idea. If you blew pistons and rings, you should buy new pistons and rings. In which case why not buy the ones made to fit your bike? They should be equally available.

When fitting a new top end you may have broken the piston rings. On a Two Stroke engine the rings have a gap which must not enter any ports. To prevent this the slot for the rings has a metal peg to hold the ring gap in one place.
On Four Stroke engines there is no ring peg as there are no ports.
If a ring breaks whilst being fitted the broken parts will enter a port and then be dragged up and down the barrel causing damage to piston and barrel. The broken parts one having made their way to the top of the piston will be crushed between the cylinder head and the piston damaging both. The cyl head can be re used but the piston is most likely ruined.

Pete

Remove the cylinder to expose the piston and rings,the rings should be lose around the piston, they should have a break in them so they can be removed and squeezed in to fit back into the cylinder

Best would be to re-ring the piston you have unless it is damaged. To check the cylinder for wear, remove the ring from the piston and use a feeler gage keep using a smaller one till one fits, if less than .005 ok to re-ring. if more than that you might see if you can find a larger piston. one that fits at .0015 -- .0025 is good fit.

sounds like you might have broken a piston ring. Sometimes a small piece will break-off and cause the loss of compression and if you look down the cylinder you wont see it. But it's enough to cause a problem.

excessive piston clearance.really needed bore job with oversized piston,not just honed and rings.measure piston to cylinder clearance,check spcifications and verify

First, be sure they actually do fit the bore. Take a ring and insert it in the bore. push the ring halfway into the bore using the piston. There should be about a 1/32" gap in the ring. Anything more than 1/16" and you need rings the next size up. If the ring won't go into the cylinder because the gap fully closes, the rings need to be a smaller size.

With the correct size rings, put them on the piston. Some pistons have an index pin in the ring groove Fit the gap to the pin. Put the piston mid-stroke and place the cylinder over the top of the piston. Squeeze the rings closed as you gently tap the cylinder downward and over the rings.

Please rate this solution. Thanks garethholleb!