Saving Old Seagulls

Hi, I'm trying to get an old 40+ from 1954 going. This motor has had a hard life, and the bronze transom clamp has been broken and brazed at some time. The stainless pin thing for hinging on has been replaced with a bolt, with a seized up plain steel stiff nut rusted on to it. There is only on abbreviated screw in one mounting bracket - which needs a mole wrench to turn it and has no cup washer at all, the other 7/16" Whitworth hole is empty, and a bit furry.

I'm reluctant (to put it mildly) to spend £26 + postage on two very desirable stainless screws from SoS, at least until I've proved the motor will run in water and drive the boat for a few hours, but how can I fit it on the boat to test? Can anyone here please suggest a cheap solution - I'm willing to grease up mild steel for the testing period, and use a spanner if necessary. My local screw/bolt supplier no longer will even consider Whitworth! (Am I really that old?)

I've considered using hardwood wedges, but I think they would come loose. I have one very old rusty round head square shank bolt, 8" long, in my junk box, with the right thread only 1" up it - that won't do the trick!

Any brainwaves considered!

Ian

Whereabouts are you?

Cut out/remove the old screw, get two longish metric bolts - 10mm should do - which will pass through the screw holes, and some nuts and washers to put either side of the bracket to tighten the bolts as needed.
Be nice if you could get the bolt heads on the inside of the bracket to spread the load, but failing that, put some penny washers between the end of the bolt and the wood (?)

charlesp wrote:Whereabouts are you?

Hi Charles, I'm in Lancashire, not far from Preston - why?

RickUK wrote:Cut out/remove the old screw, get two longish metric bolts - 10mm should do - which will pass through the screw holes, and some nuts and washers to put either side of the bracket to tighten the bolts as needed.
Be nice if you could get the bolt heads on the inside of the bracket to spread the load, but failing that, put some penny washers between the end of the bolt and the wood (?)

Brilliant idea - thanks Rick. I think I already have some stainless bolts which would do - if I have enough nuts for them. Hmm, if they were long enough to not easily fall out, I would only need single nuts on the _inside_ and a spanner to tighten them, forcing the heads against the transom, but that might not be stable enough. Some experimenting to do!


My local shop (AllThread) quoted me about 20 quid for one 1m length of stainless with a Whitworth thread, which would have been fairly hard to work up into home-made thumbscrews. Oh, and a weeks delay, not that that would be a problem as I've been hijacked into clothes shopping and am still in the middle of house repairs (fascia boards and gutters).

If you had been local I could have lent you a bracket...

charlesp wrote:If you had been local I could have lent you a bracket...

Thanks very much for the thought,

I wish I could devote more time to this project, but the house is in bits - no gutters/woodwork all along one side. And, the weather seems against me. It's either raining or blowing a gale!

I'll post here when I get a result, but it may be some time . . .

Sounds like you've got a lot of work to do before you can paly with Seagulls!!

Only other thing I should have said is that it is not necessary to really tighten transom screws/bolts, which might be more of a tenmpation with a spanner than with the thumbscrews, and especially as your transom bracket is in a fragile condition.
All that is necessary is to nip the engine onto the transom to stop the engine leaping off - if you go the bolt route, maybe Nyloc nuts would allow you to make a better adjustment of the tension.

Don't forget to tie the motor [drivetube] to the boat in some secure way.