Saving Old Seagulls

Hi
Im new to the forum and seagulls , just taken posetion of my first (2 week wait due to seller packing with a full tank of petrol!!!)
I believe its a forty featherweight No IO23A2, cant find this serial no on the list though.
I have tried it in a barrell
A couple of queries , it runs fine but the water just trickles from the oulet under hardly any pressure is this normal or a sign the impeller is wearing also the fuel drips from the carb if its not turned off at the tank?

oops cleaned it off and its actually FI023A2 I believe 1949/1950

What we need is nice pictures to look at

H-A

I think if you look for the serial number data on this site you will find it's 1972.
& a good search will reveal the answer to your fuel drip & a lot of other useful info.

The F you have now discovered tells you that its a Featherweight from 1967 to 1976

The A2 tells you that it is January 1972.

1023 tells you it was the 1023th one they made that month, day, morning or something

It should look very similar to this one

There you are nice picture

H-A

yup, there we go ....

as always supected ...Vic bob on the button with dates, but asking his 'Gull to drive a bee- hive ??

brave man, and repsect !!!

I thought that was as far as he had got with his new clinker boat

H-A

Back to the original question as to proper coolant water flow, I find that a newly started engine has to be run up to at least half speed for 5 to 10 seconds to start water flow out of the exit hole and remain pouring out at about the thickness of a pencil. Any longer than that and you probably have work to do.

In any case, you should be able to drop throttle back to about a third and still have some form of water discharge. If not, there could be blockage within the head from accumulated rust and other stuff that cooling water took up with it in past running. There's the possibility of blockage in the water supply tube from the gearbox-located pump up to the head, or a worn impellor of course, but a head clog is apparently not uncommon. The impellor can be measured for wear. The spec on the rotor blade, measured on the longer wall of the same, is 30.16mm (or 1.187" for us Yanks)*.

I recently cleaned out my engine to some degree, by using regular automotive radiator cleaner. I first ran the engine (with prop removed) in a 10-gallon trash pail with almost the full bottle of cleaner in it, for about ten minutes. I then stood the engine on its flywheel and poured in some straight cleaner and let sit 24 hours. I then ran the unit again for several minutes in clear water. This seemed to help some and you might try that first. In my case, it wasn't all that I thought it should be based upon past Seagull ownership and so I moved on to the next step.

It was decided to clean out cylinder head rust the hard way. I followed disassembly instructions found in a manual and cleaned the head accordingly. It made a substantial difference in this particular example, though I believe that pre-treating with radiator cleaner may have made the crap easier to force out once the head was removed. And in your case, performing a radiator cleaner treatment might be enough.

If you like the concept of this engine and plan to keep it (or moreover, if you plan to actually use it at sea), one should consider getting a repair manual on the engine if one becomes readily available.


-Ted


* As an aside, I notice that the QB-series Seagulls use a rotor that's similar but which has eight blades rather than four; I've wondered if using a QB rotor trimmed to fit, would offer better flow at near idle speeds. Perhaps that'll become a winter project among the many others on the list.

magsnemma wrote:... also the fuel drips from the carb if its not turned off at the tank?

We could easily start a new thread, re: carb cleaning. Here's the short version... I've worked on a plethora of small engines over time and I find that it takes very little grit or flecks of dissolving fuel line hose, whatever, to stand in the way of the float needle valve's ability to seat properly and to regulate the fuel level in the bowl.

To expand upon it, if the float needle doesn't shut off fuel flow at the correct level, excess fuel's going to leak out. It's the same effect as pressing the tickler button, which makes sure that the float bowl is in fact filled up prior to starting. We don't want that to occur all the time of course! So, if you're up to it, one could clean out the carb in general and pay close attention to the float needle and to the recessed seat against which it seats... some sort of cleaner blown through it as a backflush through that opening, so that it comes out the fuel connection at the banjo clamp, should help. And since the filter screen and banjo clamp should already have been removed for this process, see how much stuff may have been accumulated there and remove same.

If the float's not floating then obviously that calls for a replacement. If the float needle is worn at its contact point, ditto.


-ted

Thanks Vic. You posted....

"The F you have now discovered tells you that its a Featherweight from 1967 to 1976

The A2 tells you that it is January 1972. "

My old love, and much loved , has a BING on it. 1976. Any clue when the carbs changed?





Regards

My old love, and much loved , has a BING on it. 1976. Any clue when the carbs changed?

1976. Bing carbs are fitted to motors with a 'G' in the model code.