Saving Old Seagulls

Steve I have a chromed brass fuel tank, maybe they were Seagull produced as the water & fuel pipes were.

Mine is the earlier bayonet cap type.

The threads are the same on this & the "bakerlite" cap. I can't belive that anyone would be recreating a 1950's fuel tank & cap. I would ask Ross Leger & Simpley Seagulls in New Zealand if they had one, failing that, try John Williams. I'm half way through recreating some Marston tanks & I'm not mak...

Replacing or repairing starter springs is not realy that difficult, just dirty & fiddley. If the end has broken off the spring (usually the end that hooks on the outside casting) try bending a new one, if the spring snaps when bending try heating the end with a blow lamp (less than cherry red) until...

John, the other Charles & I, have had, on numerous occasions the conversation on where the problem lies & why the electric drill answers it. I have played with, i.e. tried to start, heaps of Seagulls ranging from 1932 to 1994 & up to this point, havn't found one with magnets too weak to permit start...

Graham this is a how long is a piece of string question. If I remember right Seagull only made a weed free prop for the 40+ with the 2.5:1 ratio gearbox with the clutch. If you don't have a clutch then you have a 3.5:1 gearbox so your motor will possibly over rev or at least rev higher, on your boat...

I spent an hour earlier this evening composing a long post explaining why a static bollard pull was not the best way of doing this & why it often gave a false impression, only to have my wonderful new computer crash as I was posting it. I then had a brain wave. How about a century transom bracket wi...

New computer I'm now able to log on & post, WOOOPEE! During my racing research we have tried all sorts of permutations with the spark timing, all to very little avail. It's true, that if you retard the spark 5 to 15 degrees you can get a smoother, lower tickover speed, which is no use whatsoever, as...

The inner exhaust on a short shaft is 12" long & 16" for a long, now I can't remember if the measurement is from the top of the mounting plate or the length of the projecting tube. But you should be able to tell from the length of your long shaft one. The face of the mounting plate where it fastens ...

What you can rev it up to depends on the condition of your 170. With my race 170 I throttled back at Easter, if the revs exceeded 6500 , as I needed to finish, if I wanted to finish first, With an ok 170 on the back of a 12 foot plus non racing hull I would guess 4000 to 4500 revs should be good. If...

Well the Pom did it this year, actually finished the race, all 88 miles of it, without breaking down & smashing anything. And to top it all I finished first & broke the real British Seagull record leaving the Southern Hemisphere boys with a time of 3 hours 42 minutes that they have to beat to regain...

I would have thought this gearbox would look at it's best with the 2 bladed "swept back prop" or the "bow tie" slightly later model, both of which would be right.

I heat mine with a gas torch gently all over, on a block of wood until I see the first few green flickers appear in the gas flame, That's it, remove heat & let it cool. This is what I do every time I remove a head, then I coat with a very thin coat of any high temp RTV. I must have used every colour...

No John, I have never seen a bronze bigend cap, I think the bronze bearing gossip originated in Sesgull's R&D dept.

All the dying 170 rods that I've seen have the bearing surface of the end cap badly worn, bronze as a bearing surface will almost run dry, but aluminium drags badly & wears away quickly without sufficient oil to protect it, leaving too much room for the oil to lubricate properly. So I can't really s...

Many 170's have run for years without any problems. By all means check the big end bearing condition, if it's tired fix it, if it's ok use it like it was intended, but don't over rev it out of gear, & run it on 20 : 1. I don't know if this will prevent problems, I use all my 25 : 1 Seagulls at 20 : ...