Saving Old Seagulls

Please could I ask some advice?

I bought some parts from SOS recently in order to have my Silver Century refurbished by someone else. The finished result looks fabulous and I'm very pleased with it.

I tried it out on the river on my motor launch at the weekend. I was using the launch's own inboard engine to get me to a quiet stretch of the river to test the Seagull. When I got it started (easy) it was a bit uneven even in neutral but every time I put it in gear it lost power and often stalled. I'd say I ran it for about 3 periods of <5mins each before giving up.

When I got home, I discovered to my horror that the gearbox was completely empty. It was silly of me not to check, but in my defence, I had assumed that it would have been filled because the refurbisher had shown me a video of it running in a wheeliebin just before shipping it back.

So, (sighs...) my question is, do you think I will have rogered the gearbox?

Thanks,

A

Fill it up with 140 grade, I’m sure it will be fine.

If it is stalling and struggling to rev, check you have the correct prop. You may have a prop that is too coarse pitched, the engine will struggle to drive it.

And if you have damaged the gears, which seems unlikely, from your description you didn't get to actually run it much, replacements are not hard to find. Fitting a new pinion can be an adventure, but not impossible. Buy some oil, try it again...

Thanks guys. You've reassured me a bit.
I've since filled it up, and when I'm feeling brave I'll have another go, and hope a load of iron filings doesn't emerge from the gear casing.
It'd be a shame to be the owner of the prettiest non-functioning Seagull in the land!

see pics at https://photos.app.goo.gl/czUp8FhtRSBxejeq9

Sounds to me more like a spec of dirt got into the carb during transportation or similar and the seagull goddess was smiling upon you by having the motor conk out before damage to gearbox. I'm sure it is nothing serious.

Thanks Hugz. I'll have a furtle in the carb to check what's what.

The gearbox of my newly refurbished Silver Century is now full of oil. Fingers crossed that I got away with that blunder.
I cleaned the carb, and gapped the plug (the gap was way too narrow) and it's certainly running better, but still a bit erratic even in neutral.
Also noticeable is that (in the test tank) it runs very smokily. I know Seagulls are supposed to be so, but my other engines (also running on 25:1 with TCW3) hardly smoke at all. What might be the cause of the lumpiness and excessive smokiness do you think?? Ta.

Possibly a badly set-up carb, you have another, so try swapping one to see if it makes a a difference.

If not, any troubleshooting guide for just about any engine with excessive smoke will talk about worn piston, piston rings, and cylinder bore. The easy way to diagnose an engine in a poor state is to do a compression test, for which you will need a compression test kit. Look on ebay for one with an 18mm adaptor, expect to pay about £15.00. Less than 50psi - problems.

Do you know if the guy you had do some work dismantle the engine?

I believe when they are talking about excessive smoke caused by rings, bore etc they are talking about 4 stroke motors that has sump oil that is bypassing the rings or travelling through worn valve guides to burn in the combustion chamber whereas 2 strokes are designed to burn oil.

They seem to smoke more in a test bin as there is no movement. I wouldn't worry too much about the smoke. If the plug gap is out the points gap maybe too.