Piston Rings
 

After 46,000 miles I think I'm looking at a set of rings soon. After doing regular back to back 300 mile days my oil level goes down to half way between min/max on the dipstick daily. I check it and top it up every morning.
My question is, how little parts do I need ? Can I get away with just the rings and a head gasket or do other smaller gaskets regularly tear when removing? Can the head bolts be reused or are they stretch bolts? Would it be easier to get a whole head set and do the lot?
Cheers Gang

I would strip the motor & inspect to see why it is using oil, send the head, cylinder & piston to a machine shop & let them measure them up according to the Yamaha spec's, you can re-use the head bolts.

I would fit this kit http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Cylinder-Works-High-Comp-Cylinder-Kit-102mm-11-1-1-Yamaha-Raptor-700-06-12-/321005616688?pt=Motorcycles_Parts_Accessories&hash =item4abd6cfe30machine the skirt of the cylinder to fit the XT's crank case & slot the 2 X 6mm bolt holes on the cylinder & it will fit straight on the XT.

Cheers Kev. In an ideal world I would go for that but my bike is in America and I will have limited tools, that's why I was going for the minimum work and parts.

All the parts mentioned are all from the States.

If the bore is OK, & the piston to cylinder clearance is within spec, you might get away with a set of rings, base gasket, head gasket, 2 X exhaust gaskets, 4 X valve stem seals.

Just make sure the engine breather system is not clogged up casing to much crank case compression.

Will do. If I did go for the "kit' are there any special tools needed or can you do the job with basic stuff ?
Is it just a bit of length that needs to come of the piston skirt ?
Thanks mate

Engine out, head & cylinder off, Torque wrench to retension bolts & nuts.

Engine out http://www.xt660.com/showthread.php?t=6338

The rest of the engine strip down can be found in the mod section by clicking on the link below.

Hell kev...
Don't post links like that... My credit card gets nervice enough
with out help from anyone ealse...

i don't need it...i don't need it.. I don't need it...

Thanks again Kev. I was a car mechanic for 20 years so not bothered about the strip/rebuild etc, just don't want it getting to complicated when I'm in my friends garage in America with limited tools. I haven't had much experience with bike engines but it's all just nuts and bolts eh ?

You will be fine then, the XT motor is very easy, if you are going to do the valve stem seals have a look at my stage 1 cam shaft thread & that is about how tricky it gets.

Did it 10.000km ago. My bike started consuming oil at 85.000km I switched over to the cheapest oil I could find. At 130.000km it consumed 1L every 1500km. I decided to change the rings and valve seals which did the trick. Cylinder looked nice and piston was still in spec (rings were out a bit). I grinded (?) the valves again. It costed me around 150euro and about 20hours of wrenging.