Doing it in situ was easier than I thought it was going to be as I have no workshop or space, just the road out the front of my house and with little experience with water boxers.
After stripping it all down from the carb, inlet manifold, exhaust manifold, air box and all the protective tin wear underneath.
I removed the rocker cover tappets and push rods now on to the head bolts my heart sank as I thought this is make or break time.
So I proceeded from outside to inside doing opposites (heart racing in case i break one) but they all came out To my amazement so that was the head off and cleaned I then thought do I do the piston sleeves or not so I did but I only one as I pulled the piston sleeve back to far and out popped the piston ring
I then broke the bottom scrapper ring trying to put it back in. So a new set of rings was ordered and delivered the next day I then went on to replace all three rings on the piston this needed two of us as no piston ring compressor and access to the piston is limited. now the rings are on one under the van and one above working the rings around to slide the sleeve down over with out a ring compressor. So finally that was done new seals in place as the second one wasn't moved I decided to leave this one and only replace the top seal.
Now I cleaned the block surfaces and made ready to replace the water jacket seal with the sealant but if anyone does try doing it themselves make sure everything is ready to put straight together as the sealant has a setting time and starts to skin between 5-15 min.
Then you got to replace the head and head bolts in sequence starting from the middle to outside working in opposites up to about 10nm and then back round again to about 50nm then you can just replace everything else in reverse order......
oh we'll will have to wait till next week now to start all over again but at least dolts engine and I are getting to know each other very well.