Saving Old Seagulls

Yes, but the 420 carb is too big for a stock 102 cylinder even with or without the nylon adapters in the carb flange. Have a look through the carb while its fitted onto the cylinder, remove the throttle slide and compensater and see how much of a step there is between the carb and inlet stub. Airflo...

Are you sure that carb will work on your 102? I reckon it might be a little on the large side myself. Will it actually fit onto the inlet stub of the 102's cylinder? What bits are you missing from your 416? As for adjustment screws, 1 will probably be a pilot screw (fuel mix) and the other an idle s...

I do know that our american brethren suffer with problems with their fuel if left for long periods of time. Something to do with the chemical makeup of the fuel itself. I'm wondering if a similar problem exists in SA, hence the problem you've had with stuck piston rings. At least it was a fairly sim...

How about if we club together and send you a carb to SA.
Would that work?


Come on guys, lets help Roy out here. Someone from the forum must have a spare carb sitting around going spare surely!

Found this on fleabay which shows the wire frame type. Pretty much the same principle as the fully enclosed version. You'll notice that "cup" we mentioned earlier on. Looks the same doesn't it? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BRITISH-SEAGULL-OUTBOARD-MOTOR-RECOIL-FOR-40-40-WITH-CLUTCH-FEATHER-W...

I fit all of my seagulls gudgeon pins with the blocked end towards the top and away from the exhaust port. Stops any oil filling the hollow tube of the pin over time and adding extra weight to the reciprocating assembly. Some early 102's had a slightly different design of pin where both ends had an ...

Earlier century's with villiers carbs also used slightly different cylinder heads with smaller volume combustion chambers (the one's that the racers usually want for their "high spec" sooper dooper tweeked motors) and sometimes referred to as "high compression" when you see them ...

New one on me too. Not that i've seen any of the newer style 102 cylinders with the narrow transfer port and centrally mounted carb, as most of my interests are with the older pre 1960 engines and older. I can't put my finger on it right now but something is not right with this power head. Bent con-...

Seems like a lot of work for very little gain Roy. I would measure the throat of the villiers and see if it's the same ID as the inlet stub on the 102 cylinder. 2 sizes of villiers carbs that were fitted onto seagulls to be aware of. The smaller size villiers (7/16 i think) was normally found on ver...

Nice one. :P I'm quite a fan of these. I have 3 already and I really like them. You're lucky that the ignition system is still going though. Might be worth putting a multi-meter over the usual suspects under the flywheel for more peace of mind as you never can tell just how good the coil actually is...

As per H-A's picture, bottom left is the "cup" that those flaps engage. Basically it's a metal on metal contact that allows you to spin the flywheel. You can use wd40 inside the "wizzy" bit where the clock spring will be, but as Hugo mentions try to keep any lubricant away from t...

Can you show us a picture of your recoil assembly? We might be able to spot the problem a bit easier. There are 2 distinct types of recoil starters for seagulls. One that is fully enclosed and normally seen on cdi ignitions, and the other has a tubular frame which attaches to the outside of the cran...

Roy Could you not hold your flywheel "free hand" against a bench grinder with a wire wheel. Maybe it didn't come across all that well in the last post. It's what i do when doing any flywheel prep work ready for paint. As per Hugo's pics, i have something similar made from an old wrecker wh...

Personally i would have removed the flywheel from the engine and run it through a bench grinder with a wire wheel attachment. Much quicker and easier. No risk to the engine either from dust ingress or dry running. Gives you a chance to go through and look at the points once you have it all exposed l...

Roy With regards to pinion gears for "barge pusher" gearboxes. The pinion gear for these bigger boxes will be much longer in length compared to the more common 2.5 to 1 ratio boxes. They won't be a direct swap and number of teeth on gears will be different too. 4:1 ratio for the big box an...