102 SD Skeletal bracket wanted

[headdownarseup]

Right, here we go then.
This was a "You Tube" star (and probably still is if you look at Nianders website you'll see it on there)
Serial number SDP 11449.

First things first, this is and has been a work in progress over the last 2 1/2 years and apart from a few "corrections" made by me i reckon it's not that far off being more or less correct. (there's still a couple of things i need to look out for yet before i'm happy with it)
Hopefully Mr.Oyster will jump in with some comments as well.
For those of you that dont know (or perhaps might have forgotten) i am also collecting data on SD and SDP motors.
I'm attempting to carry on from where Oyster left things. (i have made some progress but not much)

Take a look at the pics below
enjoy...

[headdownarseup]

a few more

[headdownarseup]

and a few more

[Charles uk]

The Marston Registry has the correct size brass chain in 6 inch lengths & the 2 brass "key rings" that fasten the chain to the tank split pin & the fuel cap, this was purchased for register members who wished to use all the correct components for their restorations.

There is still a few spare sets left, if any of you SD restorers want a set they cost £2.00 + P&P.

Email me.

[Oyster 49]

SDPs are a difficult one. No real info exists, but my view is that these were the very first post war engine, made about the time the SD order was finished, perhaps in 1945. They all seem have short water jackets, and direct drive, plus I think they had flat top magnetos too, which were just coming out at that

I had one that the sellers father bought from new in 1945, but there was no bill of sale to prove it! Shame.

The early post war period is still a mystery, SDP then C and D then AC and AD by 1947 ish. not many engines about from the early post war period.

Charles SP has done a lot of research it would be good to see what he has discovered of that era.

[jerseydave69]

[quote="Oyster 49"]SDPs are a difficult one. No real info exists, but my view is that these were the very first post war engine, made about the time the SD order was finished, perhaps in 1945. They all seem have short water jackets, and direct drive, plus I think they had flat top magnetos too, which were just coming out at that

I had one that the sellers father bought from new in 1945, but there was no bill of sale to prove it! Shame.

The early post war period is still a mystery, SDP then C and D then AC and AD by 1947 ish. not many engines about from the early post war period.

Charles SP has done a lot of research it would be good to see what he has discovered of that era.[/quot

This thread has got interesting and helpful now ! Thankyou . My SDP has by all accounts the right gear case with the grease nipples, Crank case with the code number , the not scripted flywheel plate , and probably the original exhaust tube and drive tube , as there would be no real reason to have changed these parts in the past ! So to my mind most of the main parts are circa correct age wise ....Buuuuuut I'm still looking for a bracket ...and fuel cap ,now with steel tank

[Charles uk]

I think we are guessing a bit here gentlemen, after all aren't there some early C's & D's with coolie hat flywheels, implying that British Seagull were still using them after the end of the SD production run.

It's quite possible that the SDP's were fixed gear models, but there are quite a few that were not direct drive, so that's open to question.

More research must be done to find out exactly when Arthur Bray & the other surplus dealers were selling the ex military Seagulls & weather this was after Seagull started to use the mk 1 Villiers ignition, permitting Arthur Bray & co to replace complete faulty coolie hat ignitions with mk 1's & rob the faulty ones for spares.

CharlesP & I spent a lot of time & petrol looking into the SD story, only to come up with very little concrete data, certainly not enough to convince a jury of any of your suppositions.

[Oyster 49]

Yes, like I said above very little fact exists only theory, backed up by some educated supposition! Never easy to solve puzzles like this until a untouched engine with a known history appears. That's not very likely.

[headdownarseup]

If there are any early C and D models about with coolie hat magnetos i'd very much like to see them?
I havn't come across any so far with my data collecting!

But quite rightly, there is precious little evidence' documentry or otherwise to prove one way or the other how these motors are supposed to look.
I think the general consensus would show that after everything that has happened in the post war years, some of which we know already, sadly there is still much that we dont yet know. At the moment all we can go on is some very grainy black and white pics taken years ago. Paper documents tell a bigger story, but (so far) they dont really exist anywhere.
I've spent a couple of months going through various websites and talking to individuals all over the country,often leading to a dead end.
I thought i'd come a bit closer to solving some of the riddles a little while ago with these wartime seagulls. I sent out a request to the imperial war museum (and many others) asking for any documents using key search words like "out board motor" and "bridge building pontoons" and "british seagull". The girl from the IWM was very helpfull,she knew exactly what i was searching for documents wise. I did manage to get some evidence in 1944 of bridge building activities with the american forces using pontoons to errect temporary structures over several rivers in France. No evidence of specific engine serial numbers of outboard motors (seagull or otherwise). This is where my trail ran cold....... the mystery continues

I would have thought that the Army and perhaps the Navy would keep impeccable records on all sorts of mundane things, but do you think i can find anything related to a british seagull or bridge building pontoons........nope

But.......going by certain questionnaires carried out recently, most of the SDP's (and probably SD's as well) that survive today will look very similar to the ones already posted. Whether or not that had anything to do with Arthur Bray or not i guess we might never know.
As with any old machinery that's been around for donkeys years, inevitably bits break on them and parts get swapped around all over the place leading to much confusion.
The really hard part in all this is trying to unpick all the loose ends,trawling through hundreds of photos, asking plenty of questions etc etc.
Little by little you can slowly work out from looking at loads of motors in the SD an SDP range, (and by loads of motors i mean many hundreds) what parts are common to both sets of motors, and what parts are later additions. BUT even that is not enough.....

Any suggestions welcomed gents.

I'm not going to give up on this. Even if takes me a lifetime, i will get answers.....


In the meantime, enjoy your seagulls for what they are. Tuff, rugged,elegantly designed little workhorses.
Long live the seagull...

Jon

[Charles uk]

CharlesP & I discussed several ways of furthering the researching this subject during our but mostly his investigations.

The Ministry of Supply, the way their orders, purchasing, materials supply, operated & how the finished product was distributed.

All the post war yacht/boating periodicals to see when Bray's were advertising & to see if any articles were written about all these British motors turning up on the market.

Are you sure I didn't tell you Jon that CharlesP had already been to several regimental museums & the Imperial War Museum only to find almost nothing, as very little had been digitised, so several days going through paper files were a waste of time for the poor chap.

I think he also tried Pathe News to see if they had anything.

[headdownarseup]

Yes, i think you did tell me there was extensive going back and forth only to discover sod all!

Still,i wont give up on this. (not yet anyway) There has to be something out there somewhere that hasn't come to light.

Theories,there are many. Facts are few at the moment.
It is a great shame that BS never kept their paper records for any length of time as it could have helped answer heaps of questions.




Here's another theory that you and i talked about that's relevant to SDP's.
You had an idea that it may have been possible that some (not all) SDP's were fitted with a plus sized gearbox/prop, in other words the bargepusher box and prop.
This sort of makes sense when you look at the drive tube and see that there is still the threaded hole where the clutch pivot stud would have been fitted!
But then that would mean an SDP might have had a clutch fitted originally???
The idea then follows on with Mr.Bray after the war's end, bought up the surplus motors and retro-fitted a more suitable gearbox and prop combination along with a more "user friendly" transom mount.
I'd be very interested to see any old boating articles of the time (if there are any) that might back any of this theory.

So when we see an SDP today 70 plus years on, what we see is a direct drive conventional sized gearbox and prop combo with parts of a certain era.
i.e the swept back prop, the 3 nipples in the box, straight out back exhaust outlet. Everything we've come to expect from one of these motors.
The later D's, C's AD's & AC's follow an almost exact specification until around 48 going into 49. (at least that's what my data shows so far,although it's still a bit thin in certain areas)
Then there is the question of when SDP's were actually made?
Were they made at the end of the initial run of 10,000 "wartime motors" or were they made (as Oyster pointed out earlier) slightly later towards the end of the war at say 45 going into 46?

An educated guess at best,but one that might hold some truth somewhere.
We might never get to the bottom of some questions, but i remain hopeful in the future something will turn up eventually.
I'll keep looking and probing... but for now at least, how you see them is how they are, warts and all!

Love them for what they are, smelly noisy mechanical paddles.
I know i do


jon

[Adrian Dale]

An SD and OJ. The SD has the copper cap the OJ is aluminium. The SD has a much more brass including the Carb (all except float bowl)

The OJ needs a fuel cap and dove grip; the SD needs a throttle leaver that should be the same as the one shown on the OJ.

AJ

[jerseydave69]

Wow , Those motors are stunning ! I noticed the carb float bowl housings are on different sides to each other ! Is there a right / correct way on which side to put them , as I did read somewhere that they should be on the side furthest from the fuel tank! If i position my float bowl further from the tank, the Amal writing on the housing will be behind ,and out of view !

[headdownarseup]

Good question Dave.
The float bowl position is largely dictated by which fuel line is fitted. As we've been talking about after many many years of service, things break!
Fuel lines can fracture etc. and get swapped with a later variant leading to lots of confusion when trying to restore a motor such as these back to their "original" condition. Early ones were copper (sometimes plated with either a zinc plating or similar) or even chromed as with some of the Marstons.
But most SD's and SDP'S would appear to have a copper line to keep them looking right.
Anything made from plastic or rubber that might be fitted to a "wartime" 102 will almost certainly have been fitted well after the initial build date.
(what i term as "running repairs)

There's plenty of pics on the main site of SD's and earlier Marstons. Take a quick peek and you'll see some of the key differences.

But.... the position of the bowl for most if not all pre 1945/6 motors (still trying to firm things up with my data) would be dictated by the fuel line currently fitted. Most seem to be on the left (look closely at a 46n float bowl to see the manufacurers lettering clearly on display) whereas in later years BS recommended the bowl be positioned on the other side to prevent "gassing" (flooding) when the motor is turned off.

SO, depending on how "accurate" you are wanting to be with things, the purists among us would say to the left.

You've already seen pics of my SDP, but take a look at this below,something different again (but i reckon it's probably correct for its age)
I can't quite bring myself around to tidy it up yet, i like it as it is..... honest looking

jon

[charlesp]

I did write a lengthy post on this thread a little while ago, but a combination of Talk Talk, Apple, BT and an approaching full moon has sent it off into another dimension.

First I asked if that was a clutch I could see on that OJ.

Then I confirmed that, as the other older - and less good looking - Charles pointed out, I have uncovered virtually nothing. The most valuable bit of information that I discovered after a lot of time, petrol and effort was that the National Archive at Kew does a cracking' good breakfast. Museums generally are not interested.

I also confirmed that 10,000 was the number quoted by British Seagull of outboards manufactured for "The Ministry", and that the pre-war retail value of these was akin to the quoted cost of a Hunt Class destroyer without armament. That's pretty good going for an outfit that was moribund in 1942 when the matter arose after the loss of Burma when the Army was trying to plan the crossing of a number of Burmese rivers.

Arthur Bray was advertising the things complete with a guarantee after the war at a substantial discount from the new price; acting in a way as BS's main competitor in those frugal times. Most bore a bracket similar to those that Jan has discovered on the Continent. Before someone asks, no I can't find the illustrated advert that tells me that!

Jon have you encountered any anomaly with the serials and/or JM numbers? I won't prompt you, but there is one...

Has anyone actually pointed out just a new authentic petrol cap won't work with a screw threaded tank?

With trepidation I'm clicking on the "submit" button...