Irecently purchased a 77 XLH that wasn't running. Guy said the bike had been bored .030 over and started blowing oil out the pipes. After tearing off the rear cylinder I found that&nbsp\\; the piston was not a .030 piston. Cylinder isn't even glazed yet. Problem is that the snap rings on the piston pin don't have any tabs to compress and remove. I've never seen an internal snap ring with no hole tabs to grab.
Is there some special tool or trick&nbsp\\;I need to remove these rings?
Once I get them off and hone the cylinders it should be ready to run. The cylinders mic'd out to 3.221", and the piston measures out around 3.190". Just a bit too much gap.
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What you have to do on those snap rings is.Use a small sharp knife near the opening of the ring to pry the snap ring up out of its slot.As you get it pryed out of its slot take a very small flat tip screwdriver and put it under the snap ring holding it keeping it from droping back down into its slot.Now comes the tricky part.Move the screwdriver over to the very edge of the split in the snap ring without it falling back into the slot.It may take you a few trys.When you get your flat tip to the opening on the snap ring you just gently work the end of the snap ring out to where it is outside of the slot.After you get one end of it out of its slot all you have to do is work it out or you can grab its end at the opening and pull it out.Make sure you dont bend it if you plan on reusing it.If you bend it get some new ones.Be careful that snap ring will fly out of there and put your eye out.

 

I tried all of that. The circle ring is supposed to have a bevel sticking up at it's end. That didn't exist. I even sharpened hardened tool steel to try to get a bight on it. I drilled the piston in the end for access to the ring. Ruined the piston, but it was useless anyway. Thanks for you help.