TC 102 prop ?

[Charles uk]

Does that make you two, Jaffas?

You will meet more people on Friday afternoon.

[mjling]

Hi Charles,

Its just that I don't fancy driving down from Auckland in all the holiday traffic on Good Friday, Saturday morning should be a lot easier even if it will be an early start.

Cheers
Marcus

[Charles uk]

Most will be too busy to talk on Saturday morning, you could walk to Nudges in an hour, from what I read in last Easters results, he's quick!

[mjling]

OK here's some more photos, I have partially stripped it down to assess what needs replacing.

Here's some photos of the bracket

[mjling]

Seems to be a limit on the number of photos in each post

The clutch lever has been repaired at some time

The tank body is pretty good but the ends need some attention

[headdownarseup]

Let me try and elaborate a bit with props.
Seems there might be some confusion with early and later style props and what we call them, so here goes.

There's plenty of others in all different shapes and sizes, early - mid production and on into the later years.
This is just a snippet of what was produced over the years.

[Charles uk]

Your 3 bladed "Meatcleaver" is what we've always called a 3 bladed cloverleaf, it should have 102 on the hub.

While the straight trailing edge might well slightly resemble a cleaver prop

s-l300.jpg (10.77 KiB) Viewed 609 times

it seems to been a high thrust version of the 4 bladed 102 cloverleaf for use with heavier hull shapes, with no surface piercing ability.

I think you'll find as your SD researches start to bear fruit that your 3 bladed "Bargepusher" is a Wartime HSD prop, you will note if you look closely that it's cast from Birmabrite.

[Keith.P]

That's brilliant, fabulous, wicked, astounding, legendary, apocryphal, wonderful, great, groovy, excellent, fantastic, marvellous, superb, splendid, extraordinary, incredible, phenomenal, astounding, unbelievable, spectacular and sensational, you posted a picture Charles.
Plus Ironic.
Ring ring.

[Oyster 49]

Perhaps he had wind?

[Oyster 49]

top centre is a 4 bladed "hydrofan" for a 102.

I'd also suggest just to be a little pedantic (Or accurate) that a four blade 102 prop is not a hydrofan. The hydro fan prop is 5 bladed as introduced on the century.

[Charles uk]

Sorry Oyster the "Hydrofan" bit refers to the blade shape, long thin narrow corded blade, originally sold as a low drag improved performance prop offering a low cost upgrade to all of the pre hydrofan props, I think a 5% improvement was promised.

A performance upgrade for all the then current models from 40- to the century+ not including the 102+.

[Oyster 49]

Interesting, I thought the term was used to describe the 5 blade prop. Looking at the olde leaflets on the SOS webpages I see that a 40+ was offered with a 4 blade hydrofan prop. I stand corrected headmaster

[Charles uk]

Not a problem.

As here at S-O-S we have taken up the role as the primary factual reference site for Seagull data, & the moderators have fallen into the task of keeping it as accurate as possible, hence us acting as grumpy schoolmasters!

[Hugz]

top centre is a 4 bladed "hydrofan" for a 102.

I'd also suggest just to be a little pedantic (Or accurate) that a four blade 102 prop is not a hydrofan. The hydro fan prop is 5 bladed as introduced on the century.

Yah. I always thought the hydrofan was for the 11 and 13 inche five bladers. Thay look most un-nautical and upset my sensibilities.....

[headdownarseup]

Chas. i think if you try and remember from a couple of years back that YOU now have that 3 bladed bargepusher prop, although my wartime research hasn't revealed anything at all yet about HSD's or what sort of prop they wore. I rejected this prop from my "bargepusher" purely because the hub was far too small for a PLUS sized gearbox. It just didn't look right to me. Up till now i've only ever heard a rumour that 1 HSD survives somewhere, hopefully there are more. Apart from maybe 2 other earlyish post war "bargies" i've seen over the last 6 years or so, most early 102 bargepushers seem to have a 4 bladed cloverleaf unless anyone can confirm either way.
I have my doubts with these 3 bladed versions though. There's far too few genuine unmolested 102's these days to be able to arrive at any firm decisions as to what's genuinely original to that particular motor, or what is a later addition or "upgrade".
Having said that, doors are being opened all the time on dusty sheds and garages all over the country so who knows what will be discovered. We sit and we wait.


Getting back to topic:
As far as we can tell (for now any way) a typical prop for a TC would have been a 4 bladed "hydrofan". The vast majority seem to be so.
I'm a little concerned however looking at the pics provided that the gearbox for this 1958 102 has holes instead of slots for the water inlet.
I can't help thinking that at some point in this motors life that the entire gearbox/prop combo has been swapped from an older motor.
It makes sense going by the "bowtie" prop, but i'd like to see some better pics of the gearbox before i make up my mind on this
Unless the owner is worried about originality, then i see nothing wrong with the parts so far. Repairs are one of those things that a motor picks up along the way. It's easily put right. Just ask...


Jon