David,

I had the same problem last year when I replaced the heads on my 85 Westy.
I just moved a bit too fast when removing one head and didn't see the
cylinder coming along with it.  Upon reassembly, I tried for hours to simply
use my fingers to compress the rings with the piston in the engine, but
could never quite get the cylinder over the last ring.  I finally found a
ratchet type ring compressor at Sears(basically a long piece of rolled sheet
metal with a hose-clamp type ratchet system around it - to be used with a
hex wrench), that after a few more tries enabled the cylinder to slide over
the rings.  I had to use just the rolled sheet metal, wrapped tightly around
the piston, without the ratchet clamp, so I could fit it inside the
waterjacket.  It took some fiddling, but worked.

James Wagner

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com]On Behalf
> Of David G. Hobbs
> Sent: Monday, March 27, 2000 4:04 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Heads/Cylinders somewhat naive question!!!
>
>
> Attempting my first solo major repair redoing my heads.  Pulled them
> yesterday and the cylinders came off with them.  Does this
> mean I have to
> pull my engine to get the cylinders back on?
> Anyone please!!!!!
> Thanks
> David
>
>
> David Hobbs
> dghobbs@siu.edu
>