I cleaned the engine and checked everything out. I had noticed that it would lock up just short of completing a full rev so I pulled the cylinder heads and discovered a small piece of metal in cylinder #2. The origins of this piece of metal are unclear but there is no damage anywhere, so it does not appear that this happened while it was running. The intake manifold has been off for some time now so the metal piece probably just fell into the open intake port. Overall it’s in great shape with very little wear and good compression, I have a gasket kit on the way since some of the seals are questionable and they’re much easier to replace now then when everything is back together.
Best of all, the lightweight magnesium construction means I can, for now at least, move it around by hand.
