Apparently it has been 13 years since I did this, wow, time flies by. BTW, still no leaks. I can't remember how many washers were involved but it you keep track of them as you remove, it is a piece of cake to replace the O-ring. With respect to rotating the ram out, I do remember the ram had to be disconnected from the top before you rotate. I also think it had to be in a oriented in either top fully up or fully down position. I just can't remember which way it was. What I do remember is once I got the first one out, the second one took only a few seconds to remove. Good luck.