Cover your spark plug holes

[Peter in Aus]

Just a reminder to cover your spark plug holes, always!!
My friend Terry G bought this Gold Star some year back, supposably with a recon motor but never started. The bike looked a million dollars and had good compression when he brought it, Terry being Terry put it with all his other bikes down the bunker to look at it latter, about 5 years passed before he got around to it, he turned the motor over by hand to get the oil up, checked spark and fuel.
As terry has a gammy leg, he uses an electric starter on the back wheel, the motor turned over about twice and came to sudden stop!
We think the stud must have been there ever since he had it, as the plug was only taken out to turn it over by hand and the fuel tank hadn’t been removed.
It is amazing it ever turned over at all. 

[Topdad]

How the F*+k ???

[Swarfcut]

   Piston crown looks drilled and tapped with more accuracy than I usually achieve......

 Any truth in the heresay that flicking fag ends into plug holes on the production line at Matchless was a lunch break pastime?

 Swarfy.

[limeyrob]

New way to find TDC?
Joking aside, I find that suspicions. Too neat and too unlikely.
A couple of years ago I bought a outboard off e-bay as a non-runner. Paid very little and was in very good condition. Seller said he had had it rebuilt but it would not run and he had given up with it.
It tired everything to get the ting started, it made no sense - spark, fuel etc.  In the end i stripped it down, the cylinder base gasket was put on back to front to block the transfer port.  At first I thought "easy mistake" but its not and the more  I thought about the more it looked deliberate.  So them I checked everything really carefully.  The timing key on the rotor have been carefully moved so the timing was 30deg out.
I'm in no doubt the builder of the outboard had intentionally sabotaged it.
The engine looks to me like a deliberate sabotage by the engine builder.

[Rex]

Had that been the case (and I'm not saying that it's not) then the engine would've locked up at the first attempt to turn it over, but the OP says he managed to turn it a couple of times?
Regarding the outboard, why would someone sabotage something they were hoping to sell?

[limeyrob]

Re the outboard, I think the intended "victim" was the guy I bought it from, he'd paid a "mate" to rebuilt it.
If you look at the Goldie is it possible that (say) a rocker box stud just fell down the plug hole? I can tell you if I drop anything near an engine I don't stop until I've found it even if that means hours crawling about a cold shed floor with a torch, and it has on more than one occasion.
That engine looks clean and nicely built and that indicates someone who turns the engine over and listens and who puts rags over the plug holes.
My bet is either the engine builder did not like their customer or the seller all those years ago was not happy about letting the bike go.  Its also possible it was a prank by a jealous acquaintance at any point before or after the original sale.
I've had some close calls with open plug holes and things invariably land across the holes, or partway in, that's a large stud and it has to line up exactly and the piston has to be low enough for it to fall in.
I'll bet that was not an accident.