Saving Old Seagulls

Started on another motor, always wanted a war time motor, just started stripping it down, should be fun.

Did some work on the carb first.

Happy birthday by the way

Get a brass trumpet off John. Looks good on the engine.

So far work is proceeding as expected, slowly.
I had to replace the top crank bush as it was damaged and binding up.
Picture below, left is the damaged one, as it came out, the black mark on the one on the right is from the oil hole, don't
know if that's right or not.


Anyway the crank bush has been fixed and crank refitted, all well so far.
Even though the motor is covered in lacquer, It has served this motor well and all looks good underneath, not so good when it comes to the drive tube, but that's in the process of being plated at the moment, along with the clutch rod, not chrome, but a nice old grey.
Not looking forward to doing the exhaust, with that amount of baked on lacquer.


A lot more painting and cleaning still to do

After replacing the bushes, shouldn't the new set be reamed with the Seagull special reamer? After asembling the two halves of the crankcase etc?
The black mark may have been drilled to let the oil lubricate more efficiently.

I don't know about a special seagull reamer, but I have made up crank and big end bushes before on my old Myford and have had no problems as yet.

CharlesUK I believe can enlight us!

I do like seeing an old engine come to life and reveal it's condition As you say, the lacquer has done a good job. Will paint stripper and a plastic scraper sort that out?

I use wet and dry to clean up brass exhausts, working down to 1000 grit, then elbow grease...A buffing wheel would be great!

You can see in the last picture the buffing wheel, its working overtime at the moment on this restoration.
I will have to give the paint stripper a go, didn't think of that.

Sorry to say this Keith, but those bushes you've removed are not SD bushes, the correct bushes are no longer available & I know you've got Pb 2 bronze, a lathe & a reamer & your well capable of making a new set.

Can't wait for the end result pics.

Does anyone have an open SD crankcase, so that they can take pics of the bearings, to show how different they are?

Pictures on the way...

Upper..


Lower..


Both..



On the lower case the hole of the bush is blind. Shouldn't have been drilled the crankcase to let oil go through the hole of the bush?

It's a spare crankcase but with matters..

I also have two sets of bushes from silver centuries if those could be of any use to anyone.

That's the style I have made up, if it works for other SD's it will work for me, I'm not going to make another one, as I have already moved on.

Was there much crud in the water jacket?