Saving Old Seagulls

It seems to be a bit of a puzzle as to what F3364's life history has been.

It took me sometime, and I am still not sure, about the life of my FV2821 - a near relative of 3364, and which might be relevant in determining 3364's life. 2821 came to me as a tilting tiller version (but no T suffix) and in very good and only slightly used order. However, It wouldn't run satisfactorally due to a 'new' block which was very long and so the engine had very little compression. Stripping it down revealed that the inside of the crankcases were pristine clean - ie I do not think that it had run for any period at all. I now think that early in its life it went back to an agent or BS and was fitted with a new top and perhaps bottom crankcases. Now remember that after the LS was introduced, all FVs were (apparently) fitted with tilting tillers, but were not stamped with the T suffix. I assume from this that the only spare crankcases were the 'stubless' version (and with the later additional web). And so my 2821 was returned from this refurbishment with a tilting tiller, but no T and a webbed top crankcase.

Could something similar happened to 3364, but in this case the agent or BS reinstated the stub tiller with the arrangement that it now has?

Jeremy

ps Still cannot get photos to load

After considering the comments and revisiting the repaired section I now believe I know what occurred.
The motor was dropped on the stub tiller and the impact broke the crankcase through the body in approximately the area indicated by the red line in the attached photo. This would have left a portion of the crankcase attached to the tiller.
I suspect that the agent would have ordered, from BS a new upper case, expecting to receive the stub tiller type as in the photo but instead they received the machined crankcase with the extra fin suitable for the tilting tiller.
As they did not have the lower half of a tilting tiller crankcase they were left with two choices.
Reorder from BS; at the time, with no air freight, this would have entailed a couple of months or fix the problem in house.
I now believe that the damaged crankcase was therefore machined to make the plug, cutting back into the existing material far enough to form the 1/16 flange. This explains why the hole is drilled through the plug simply because it was always there from the original. The green line on the photo shows that there was sufficient material to achieve this and it would have been a simple machining exercise.
They next formed the two aluminium plates to bolt onto the crankcase and to fold around the tiller and grip with screws. On bolting the plates with the clamped tiller in place they had made a creditable repair for the stub tiller steering.
I had originally thought that the crankcase had been broken through the stub, yellow line, but now think this is unlikely.
So in conclusion FV3364 is and will remain a hybrid or bitser, which ever you prefer, as putting it back to original would entail finding and fitting a spare top half stub tiller crankcase. It’s a good repair though and has been in place for most of the motors existence in Australia

Reasonable, but still an assumption.
The amount of damage to the crank case seems irrelevant, as there is no way of knowing how the damage was caused, let alone the amount of damage, other than it has been replaced, all that is left is a tiller plus inside the tiller tube, presumably, as I don't know either, to give something solid for the clamp to hold, rather than just a hollow tube, you need to know, Who, What, When, Where, to know.

60 years ago is always going to be an assumption. The owner who, would have known, died late last year.... so that's about the closest we can get

Jeremy, do you have a parts book for this motor series?

Seagull have always supplied crankcases just like shoes as a pair, only one part number in the spares book & price list, not 1 for each half.

Seagull did not miss many tricks when supplying distributors with engines, if you wanted to be a distributor/dealer you had to carry the full spares kit, & that included crankcases, they come with bearings & both halves bolted together, but no serial number.

Not even the Aussies would have been daft enough to buy a motor with all it's spares 2 months away. I've bought a few of these kits & so has John, they always seem to contain treasures, I found a new FV short series con rod in the last one, perfect as a pattern if clones are needed.

There's a good chance if you contact all the Seagull breakers/wheelerdealers telling them what your after, that the right crankcase will turn up even with it's old number, as more heads than crankcases died.

Adrian, the scenario for FV3364's damage and repair seems very plausible. I was also trying to suggest that it was a lack of the availability of the replacement stub crankcase that led to the repair/modification that you now have. Interesting and part of FV3364's history.

This lack of availability of the stub crankcases was probably due to the this tiller choice apparently being withdrawn when the LS was introduced.

You seem to infer that the tilting tiller versions had a different bottom crankcase. I don''t think this is correct - but perhaps I have misunderstood you.
The extra web I believe was introduced to strengthen that area and was used on both stub and tilting tiller versions.
We have not yet determined when this became fully standard. I had previously thought about S/N 5000, but then Hugz's FV5750 is web less, so perhaps later?

Charles, I have a copy of the early Spares List. Thanks for pointing out that crankcases were sold as pairs. Technically of course that makes sense, as weren't the bearings line bored or reamed as a pair?
Do you know for certain whether these spares were stub less after the introduction of the LS? As at this point there do not appear (yet!?) to be any stub FVs produced.
I am not specifically looking for a FV crankcase, but am keeping my eyes open. I have a few rusty corroded crankcase/crankshaft assemblies as it is and am not keen to collect any more!

Jeremy

Any one got a photo of a tilting tiller arrangement on the FV? I have never seen one and assumed the tiller was fitted to the lower crankcase like this one

Adrian, as I seem to be having trouble loading photos onto this site I will send you a photo or two in an e mail of FV1867T.
With the FVs and FVPs, the tilting tiller is attached to a small steel bracket which is mounted on the two port crankcase studs.
With the LS/LM the castings are different and indeed the tiller is mounted directly onto the lower crankcase casting.
Perhaps knowing this some of my previous comments make slightly more sense?
Jeremy

These 2 pictures should help to show you what we mean by the bracket that holds the tiller. Picture quality isn't that great but it's the best i could do for now!
This is my FV11716,a later relative of 3364.
I have 1 spare that will need a replacement stud (if i can find it) it's yours if you need it A-J
This might end up being an easier repair,unless you can find someone expert enough at welding the stub back on again as per original!

jon

going back to a slightly earlier reply on this topic, Keith suggested it might have been that the top crankcase half was replaced. I think this is now right looking closely at the other pics.(slight colour variation in the metals) This later "homemade" bracket was made up to overcome the problem of mounting the tiller trying to kep the appearence of how it should be.
I reckon the lower crankcase half is the original, and the top half is the later replacement.
That's just my thoughts.

jon

Or Adrian's bracket is a prototype for a bolt-on tiller assembly.

Is the construction of that bracket Jon, similar to what Adrian has ie material, gauge, radius of bends etc? Did we decide the web post dates 3364?

Blah, cant get this song outa my head now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQB2-Kmiic

FV3364 is back together as found; it runs sweetly. I wont weld on a stub as I agree with Jon that the upper case is a replacement for the broken one. Change to a tilt tiller, that's a thought, if I can get the correct pieces. Or just leave as is.

No Hugz I don't think this was any sort of proto type. The supports, although using the same bolting arrangement are totally different and made of aluminium not steel. No this is definitely a very old repair. The original owner didn't reference it in his notes and he had owned it since the mid 50's

A-J
all you need is a 10" tiller of which there are quite a few around (and my spare bracket) and you'll have everything you need to carry out a durable repair.

food for thought

jon