cylinder dissasembly

sorry to be a pain in tha @$$ but just curious i wanna get one of my cylinders apart so i can take the o-rings out so it will be able to move freely, reason being when im doin the install i wanna be abble to move the control arm up and down with the cylinder attached to see if its binding or going funky... so my question it, how do i get a new cylinder to extend???without plumbing up a system?
also do you just screw the cylinder into a powerball till its hand tight or do ya gotta use a wrench?

thanks everyone!

Trevor