new motor

erik0905 · Post by **erik0905** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 7:13 am

hi.
I bought a WPC 2524 CI .
It should be a Century Plus , but I don't seame to be able to find out, what 2524CI means. It is a very long and heavy thing. Seames like it is ment to push a heavy boat.
Regards

Post by **charlesp** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 7:42 am

C1 means March 1971. The stamps were manually applied - and it's far from uncommon to find the 'I' used accidentally in place of a '1'. An easy mistake to make early in the shift after a few beers the night before...

Nice powerful motor

erik0905 · Post by **erik0905** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 7:52 am

never seen one before, was surprised how big it is, now I need to find a boat to use it on, or just restore it for showing.

Post by **charlesp** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 8:41 am

It's most probably a long shaft conversion. British Seagull sold these conversion kits; all the parts needed to make a short shaft into a long one. Although they stated in their instructions that it was important to change the serial number most people had no stamps - so we are left with quite a lot of motors that have an 'incorrect' serial.

Swami · Post by **Swami** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 10:19 am

Maybe BS could have/should have tossed in a set of stampers for a few extra bob with each conversion kit and a leaflet explaining how to re-mod your serial!

Yeah... great wisdom I/we all have in retrospect!

Post by **charlesp** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 10:41 am

I guess that the cost of the stamps would have been a little high - but they did ask for the existing serial number, and the note with the kit says:

'AFTER CONVERSION IT IS ESSENTIAL TO AMEND THE ENGINE NUMBER TO READ ................... DENOTING A LONG SHAFT MODEL'

So at least they tried!

erik0905 · Post by **erik0905** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 5:59 pm

charlesp wrote:It's most probably a long shaft conversion. British Seagull sold these conversion kits; all the parts needed to make a short shaft into a long one. Although they stated in their instructions that it was important to change the serial number most people had no stamps - so we are left with quite a lot of motors that have an 'incorrect' serial.

.
I have not measured it , but it is very long
erik

erik0905 · Post by **erik0905** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 5:31 am

Hi Charles
I have put it on my site

Post by **charlesp** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 10:52 am

I hope you have fun restoring this one. Good solid motor.

I shall tell my crew they're on your site! Fame at last!

erik0905 · Post by **erik0905** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:09 pm

I am sure THEY deserve it, having this skipper.

how is the book comming ? anything else for the danish people, allthough
I have many visitors from this site, and it is illegal to nick things from SOS.
Regards

Post by **charlesp** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 3:22 pm

The book is very slow. I have a lot of photos to take, and I know where I must go to do this. I have about 30,000 words actually written to my near satisfaction, with lots more that I'm not yet happy with, and numerous documents, photos, diagrams and exmples. But I keep drawing a blank on the wartime stuff. The very late things - the last few years - I have not yet made a decision. There could be a part 2 of this project - up to the late 1970s being part 1.

The story of British Seagull's decline is a very sad one. Many of those involved are still alive, and that may represent a problem...

There are lots of documents somewhere that I have yet to discover. I thought this project would be finished a year ago!

erik0905 · Post by **erik0905** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 11:36 am

Sad to hear about your project, I have noticed that the great stars always let out a single before the real CD. Therefore I mean, could you not sent out a DVD of the history of the motors, and their facts , for us who perhaps is not so int. in the manufactores, more in the mechanicel side of it. I hereby order one piece.
regards

Alan G · Post by **Alan G** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 1:11 pm

Hi Charles, I wondered from you comment about your book and wartime years of the seagulls if you had managed to get information from the Institution of Royal Engineers. I would have thought that given the extensive use the Royal Engineers made of seagulls they would have had ample material to help you. It would be sad to miss out that important part of the seagul history as I suspect it must have brought in quite a bit of cash for the company as well as exposing their product to a large audience.

Regards, Alan

Post by **charlesp** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 10:00 pm

Erik -

I'm sort of doing that. Every motor I mend or service goes back to the owner with a potted history of their engine and the company. And my road show (for libraries and exhibitions etc) has a host of photos of the factory and other stuff that most have never seen. Each time it gets me a couple of new snippets of info. The more you invest the more the return...

Alan - yes I've tried the RE - but sadly no records appear to exist. I do have, however, the personal reminiscences of a number of past RE officers and ORs.