Piston rings... Will this ever end?

[KA1J]

So I put the new rings in, got the cylinders on, head on, torqued and I go to check the amount of engine oil I need to put in and while looking through the back of the book I see something I never noticed before, there's a drawing of #2 ring and it has a bevel and the narrow side is up.

Damned if I saw that or read about #2 needing to be oriented in one way or the other. I have no idea if I have those 2nd rings in any order much less right. They were Yama NOS rings so I guess they have a bevel.

Of course I read this 20 minutes after torquing the head gasket.

Lovely. Now to buy another head gasket and take the top down again.

Damn...

This is getting old.

[WMarshy]

There has been some talk about the ring having a chamfer, dont remember any specifics... might want to wait untill someone rings in and confirms if its orientation is necessary...?

[psycoreefer]

I wouldn't sweat re-using that head gasket if all you did was tighten it down - no run time....

I reused one that had 30 years on it, and two disassemblies and have no leaks... you ought to be fine without buying a new one (again).

[DGXSER]

Up to you and your piece mind, but I would not think twice about reusing that head gasket unless it tears pulling the head off.

[KA1J]

Yup, tore a bit off from the edge of the head gasket and the base gasket has two tears in it, one around a stud and one cutting one side in half in the middle.

May be able to use gasket filler to fill in the head gasket tear and probably can use RTV black to patch the base gasket back to working.

Oh this is maddening. I'm going to walk away for the weekend, I don't want to even look at it.

No.

Why didn't Yamaha put something so important about that in the section where they went into such detail how to check the pistons/rings and show the drawing of the proper gap placement & piston position on 3-46 & 3-45 in the assembly section instead of tucking a drawing showing ring angles in the errata in the far back of the manual on page 7-5 ? Idiots...

Ugh...

[Rickrod3]

Yup, tore a bit off from the edge of the head gasket and the base gasket has two tears in it, one around a stud and one cutting one side in half in the middle.

May be able to use gasket filler to fill in the head gasket tear and probably can use RTV black to patch the base gasket back to working.

Oh this is maddening. I'm going to walk away for the weekend, I don't want to even look at it.

No.

Why didn't Yamaha put something so important about that in the section where they went into such detail how to check the pistons/rings and show the drawing of the proper gap placement & piston position on 3-46 & 3-45 in the assembly section instead of tucking a drawing showing ring angles in the errata in the far back of the manual on page 7-5 ? Idiots...

Ugh...

I spray my gaskets with Pam.
Works well.
HTH
Hang in there.