Saving Old Seagulls

All the military motors were short water jacket models, all were fitted with the 'coolie hat' magneto. The whole unit would have to be changed. Sadly the larger flywheel doesn't work with the newer base plate.. Naturally you would need a cover and rope pull etc as well. Keep your eyes and ears alert, these come up occasionally on Ebay, or maybe give John a try.

Hi Stelios,

I have a few SD magnetos and base plates left, but postage to Greece will be expensive (i think).

The coolie hat flywheels and base plates are much heavier comparing later type magnetos.

I also have the correct aluminium tank support brackets.

Jan

I think I can arrange a courier. I will send you a PM.

Thanks!

After the World War II, in the 1950's the factory were a bit surprised to receive requests for spares from Greece, particularly around the islands. They had never exported motors to that neck of the woods.

Turns out they were all military motors, they'd been used in little raids and the like, then abandoned.

Yeap, as soon as I show this SD to an old friend of mine he told me that those kind of model were used in Egypt during WW2. That's the reason why some of them were slightly used, they only use was to go back and forth the Suez Canal.

Now I need your advice as I want to restore my SD in the best way.
About the gearbox, should I polish it or should I paint it?
About the block. Is there anything I can do for the water jacket?

As far as I know British seagull must have started selling engines from around 1960 and mostly around 1970 in Greece. The dealer there was here stopped business around 2000 but all these are my estimations, not sure..

Silver spray paint and SD should not be used in the same sentence. No silver paint at all on a SD. PLEASE throw your can away. Block should be black or bare zinc coating. Steel tiller should be black painted. Leg was originally zinc coated, but many people rechrome them.Lower casting and gearbox bare aluminium.

Gearboxes usually respond well to a good polish, I use metal polish and wire wool, but it does take a long time, which is part of the fun

For the block I suggest carefully removing the fittings and then flushing it out with water, this will most likely flush out various flakes of rust from the water jacket.

Look at some of the previous SD projects posted on here, there is a huge amount of info there, from myself, H-A, and skyetoyman to name a few.

I've seen quite a few SD's that had silver cylinders, don't know if this was original as I've only seen 2 unused new cylinders & they were both black, I have 1 new unused prop & this is not polished it has a fine sanded finish, but all the other lower units & props I've seen or owned show signs of a highly polished finish.

This might have been done post war when some had the wartime green paint removed prior to their sale by the army surplus dealer who bought many of them, very few show signs of the green paint & the white stencils on the painted silencer tube.

To my knowledge there are only 2 or 3 green ones.

I will not say they are all the same, but mine had;

Galvanised cylinder ( I assume if they bothered to galvanise it, they would not paint it)

Galvanised drive tube.

Black painted tiller arm.

Black painted tank with decal, bayonet cap.

Polished gearbox with stamp on skeg.

Early style throttle lever, unplated.

Short Bakelite HT cap with composite extension tube.

Bronze gear lever.

Bronze parts to carb.

Copper tube fuel pipe.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1435


Looks like a good project, but needs some bits, does it have a skeg stamp?

H-A

Thank you both for the advices. Yeap I have found your restoration and from some other members.. I have started reading!

Now after dismantling the engine unfortunately I came across this...











I am thinking that the upper cylinder, where the backplate is fitted, is rasped. The next question is why? Maybe in order to be fitted the later ignition?
So now I would like someone to verify if there is difference in the backplate's diameter between the first villiers ignition (coolie hat) and the later one.

Now.. I have seen, in the main site I think or in a manual, the way to drill again the timing hole, the question is how am I going to find the correct point to drill. Could anyone make a suggestion according to the sign that the timing screw has made?

About skeg stamp. There isn't any, just written 1960 both on the gearbox and on the gearbox cap.

Just get it running and you can move the base plate slightly [while its running]to get it running smooth as you want them mark its position with a center punch

I can do that. What about diameters of the backplates and the worn area around the bearing. Does that seem possible to fail?

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3509

H-A

I see..
Now about bearing both have notches and the upper one has also a hole which seems that it is over there to cycling the mixture for lubrication. The notches were usual on bearings? On silver century I haven't seen any. In the main there is indeed a free play. What do you suggest? Replacing bearing (main or both) or replacing the whole crankcase?

Send those crankcases back to Santa Santa will send you some other "SD" crankcases he has

unscrew the tiller stud as its heavy[This is what you may need a blowtorch for..freeing things off.
also keep the bolts
send the crankcases to Santa
Santa will send you new ones ...got that?

Got everything Paul! Thank you!

I hope to send tomorrow the crankcase, I heard that Santa's sleigh with the reindeers is still around!