left hand pipe removed today, this little lot fell out:

yes thats part of the ring
a quick look up the barrel revealed one badly marked piston and a big gap where the top ring should have been. apologies for the quality of the next pic, i was lying on my shed floor using my phone to take the pictures:
so that's a bit of a minor set back. once there's a bit more space in the workshop I'll drop the motor out and strip it down and get it sorted.
I suppose it's more of a project now so when i have something else to report i'll start a new thread in there.
one final thing though, I've never seen this done before:

lot of effort there to save a few grams
