I bought a Seagull..

[haventaclue]

Best investment I ever made,but I still managed to break a head bolt

[Henk]

Aal bolts and nuts so far have moved easy enough, and all appeared to be greased when last put back together.

[Henk]

I took the head off. As expected, the head bolts came out easy. The previous person working on the engine obviously took the wise precaution to use a suitable grease when fitting the bolts. The water channels are full of crud, but there's no carbon build up, and no wear on either cylinder or piston. There is some play on the big end, how does one test that?

[headdownarseup]

Don't worry too much about how much play there is in the big end. Most have got a fair bit of play at this end and are quite happy to carry on running for many more decades yet. Looks very much like the original jointing compound on the head bolts. Not grease as such, more like a thread locking compound. I've seen this many times before, even on the crankcase bolts.

By the looks of things you've got it under control.
All good so far

Jon

[Henk]

I thought they were originally put together with studs and nuts?

[Henk]

A few pics of were it's at at the moment.

[Charles uk]

The 40 series power head is a fairly low stressed unit, so big end problems are very unusual, the normal difference between the big end eye id & the pin od is 1 to 1.5 thou & this should be oil filled so it would be unusual to feel anything apart from end float (sideways movement).

It might well pay you not to mess with your drive tube unless you have a spare, this size box section is no longer available, so a light clean & a bit of paint & hope it lasts, until you can locate a good used one.

[Henk]

The 40 series power head is a fairly low stressed unit, so big end problems are very unusual, the normal difference between the big end eye id & the pin od is 1 to 1.5 thou & this should be oil filled so it would be unusual to feel anything apart from end float (sideways movement).

It might well pay you not to mess with your drive tube unless you have a spare, this size box section is no longer available, so a light clean & a bit of paint & hope it lasts, until you can locate a good used one.

The shaft has rust scale, but is solid. I'm going to clean up the shaft and paint it. Would hammerite be good for this?
Does the inside of the shaft get wet?

[Henk]

Cleaning the cylinder, there is a silver (aluminium ) layer of paint underneath the black paint. Is that the original colour, or a base coat.

[headdownarseup]

I think that's a zinc coating on the block.
I've used many different types of paint on the cylinder. Smoothrite black is as good as any, or a more proprietary brand of heatproof cylinder paint.
Plenty of choices here when it comes to paint.

Crankcases are a bit hit and miss at times with how they're held together. Sometimes they have studs with a nut at either end, and sometimes they will have a bolt with a nut.
Nine times out of ten there's usually a yellowish residue (sometimes redish in colour on the early stuff) on the threads which i've interpreted as a thread locking compound, and going by your pics i'd say this is the first time your engine has been opened up for inspection.

If you've spent your youth messing around with old scooters and bikes, this should help you along a bit with this little outboard engine.
They're tough, rugged and provided you look after it once in a while should last for a long time yet.

Best of luck with it

Jon

[Henk]

Received the parts I ordered from John today, and the Seagull is alive once more, pumping water like a good un... sea trails next week.

[headdownarseup]

Well done.

All fairly straightforward once you get into them.
Fingers crossed for the sea trials! Hope it goes well.

Jon

[Henk]

We finally got a chance to take the Seagull and dinghy out on the water. We took it to the slip at Mumbles, a fair westerly was blowing, but Mumbles is sheltered from all but an Easterly or North Easterly wind.
The Seagull performed brilliantly. About an hour long, just doing laps along the foreshore, to see if it would have any reliability issues. Didn't miss a beat, I took it easy, but did a few lengths at full throttle, and it was going well. Next time we'll hang it of the back of the 15' yoghurt pot and see how it pushes that.
Happy days

[Henk]

The sparkplug after an hour having fun of the shore.

[Henk]

Turns out the fuel tap filter had broken off. Which explains the crud in the fuel line...doh.