When we turned the flywheel it nearly completed a full revolution before jamming up. My motor functions were rapidly failing in the cold (talking about my hands here), precluding any further work on the Snipe, so with this Moggy engine readily accessible curiosity got the better of me and I took the cylinder head off.
Apart from the general dirt and grime from standing the first fault was pretty obvious.
I raided one of my old 803cc heads for a replacement clip. At least I didn't throw them away, though I had been trying to get rid.
The head did not really put up much of a battle, a few blows with a hide mallet broke the joint.
The bores were much better than I expected with no ridge at the top, but these two grooves in Number 1 require further investigation. Broken piston ring perhaps?
With the cylinder head being pulled up the pushrods came with it so I had to pull them down out of the head again. As I expected, some of the cam followers had been pulled out, but I was going to remove the tappet chest covers anyway.
Also to be expected, as we both surmised, a valve or two was stuck open due to the length of time it had been standing.
So, curiosity satisfied I made a holder for the pushrods to keep them in order and put the cylinder head back on and everything else back together for another day. It has to be stripped down and everything cleaned up as a bare minimum. I wonder where the other half of that valve cotter clip went to - it could be floating about in the sump.
