I wish you wouldn't go lifting neutrals like that unless you want to start blowing up things! The readings you were getting are perfectly normal The neutral was not a problem until you lifted it. Your voltages still added up to roughly 240 volts. If you had lifted a shared neutral, you would have been able to cover the entire voltage swing by switching loads on and off of the 2 circuits. In your case, you lifted a return from a ckt connected to L1. This ckt had some loads on it. The resistance of those loads was close to zero when compared to the very high resistance of your meter. So you would expect to get roughly 0 volts to L1, 120 volts to ground and neutral, and 240 volts to the other leg.
Joe
