Saving Old Seagulls

Rain rain and more rain here in the Channel islands !
It's a good oportunity to do some tinkering with the Seagull motors though

Anyone else working on their motors this weekend ?

Actually I'm rebuilding the master cylinder on the van which is Seagull vintage. Need to transport the gulls to our Nat meeting. Thought I might try this new fangled method of bleeding brakes by using a vacuum gun to suck the fluid at the wheel end. Think I prefer a tube and a jar tho.

I think you are right Hugo!

Gravity bleed with the bleed nipple wide open and let it drip drip drip with a bottle/catch tray underneath. (top up the fluid level first though)
Once you have a steady flow of drip drip drip, re-tighten the nipple. Double check for a firm pedal with no sponginess and you're done.
Easy.

Much better with someone helping you though.


Jon

And yes, i will be tinkering with fuel tanks this weekend amongst other things. Trying to get things done in readiness for the "canal run" later this year.

I spent a bit of time today cleaning a SJM up. I started to give the tank a clean ,by rinsing out the old " megga" stale fuel ,but still have a lot of oil residue at the bottom of the tank. I rattled some nuts and bolts to loosen the muck up. It's helped,but still pretty nasty in there!
Any tips please Gents .

Half fill the tank with paraffin and slosh it around. Leave overnight and slosh around again the next day. Drain and repeat. That will get rid of all the oily sludge. Chucking a handful of nuts and bolts or some gravel and shaking around for a while helps as well, but take the fuel tap off first to protect the mesh filter on the tap inlet.

Once all the sludge is out a strong caustic solution will etch the innards of the tank. Half fill with water and add the caustic soda chrytals, a couple of table spoons should be enough. Top up with water and leave for a couple of days. The chemical reaction will create heat, this is normal. Once finished drain and rinse and dry out.

Thanks for the info. I armed myself with some soda crystals ,so will give it a go.
I already sloshed the tank out today with some diesel /nuts and bolts after sloshing some petrol around first. It looks a lot better already ,so the caustic approach should make it nice and clean.
Happy days

Dave

Remember to add caustic soda to water and never the other way around. Nasty stuff if it touches your eyes or skin.

What happens if you add water to caustic soda?

volcano effect

Hugz wrote:What happens if you add water to caustic soda?

Curtains and possibly toes up....either way no nice....

Dissolving caustic soda is exothermic (releases heat). Adding CS to water allows you to control the rate of heating to prevent boiling and spitting of a highly corrosive vapour & liquid.

The same principle applies for diluting concentrated acids.

Having had that dinned into me in Chemistry Lab at school, I have never thought to try it the wrong way round. Probably best not to as I expect if you added the water slowly it would boil explosively.

However, if you are interested in risky experiments, I suggest you read "Theo Gray's Mad Science: Experiments You Can do At Home - But Probably Shouldn't" to see the kind of precautions that should be taken - especially the one where he makes table salt from sodium metal and chlorine gas!

jerseydave69 wrote:Rain rain and more rain here in the Channel islands !
It's a good oportunity to do some tinkering with the Seagull motors though

Anyone else working on their motors this weekend ?

A good day for the gulls says who....mare snaw. .

Majestic sight

....Actually I'm rebuilding the master cylinder on the van which is Seagull vintage....

I remember that vehicle.