Saving Old Seagulls

Eureka! I took it over to a friend's house who is a great mechanic (Chevy Corvair specialist!). He showed me to stick a screwdriver in the sparkplug cap and hold the screwdriver against the engine instead of just holding the cap to it. When I spun it there was now a strong spark. What a relief! Then ...

No there's no spark when I spin the engine with the spark plug held against the engine block. Very frustrating , considering this engine was supposedly running before it was sent to me.

Yes there is continuity across the HT lead. I cleaned all the contacts from the points to both ends of the HT lead. New spark plug.

Back again, still no start. Tried ether to no avail. I have 5000 ohms resistance across the coil. No resistance in spark plug wire but also no resistance across the points even when they're open. I assume that's not good. Will try to clean them more aggresively.

I get between 5 and 10 thousand ohms doing that. This weekend I'll try some starting ether. I'll let you all know... fingers crossed!

I read in one of the posts that spinning the flywheel is appropriate only for the Villiers ignition. No? One of the replies above says I shouldn't get a spark at the points. Getting confused. I will re clean the points and then try to start with ether. If that doesn't work I'll be back...

Hi, I'm a new Seagull owner from upstate New York, USA. I built a wooden boat based on an old design (clinker I think it's called in Britain) and I wanted an appropriate 1-2 hp engine for it so I bought a forty featherweight (1969) from someone near me on Ebay. The previous owner showed a picture ...