Saving Old Seagulls

Hi everyone

to be quuite honest i do not know if i should be on this site at all the reason being i am looking for information on an engine that i have been given.
the engine has the manufacturing mark on the top of the engine of a company called The british Boat Building and Manufacturing Company.Everyone that i have spoken to has no idea who made it although it has been suggested that it may have been made by villiers.
So is there anyone out there that can shed some light on this for me any help will be much appreciated

Hi Denno,
Villiers supplied thousands of engines and various componenents for all sorts of things over the years, including outboards, but I don't belive they ever made a Villiers outboard. Your engine was probably built by the British Boat building company using some Villiers parts. I've never heard of one before but I'm sure someone who uses this site will have.
Regards
Steve

Hi Denno - sounds like you have a BMB, which has Villiers ignition on it, as did so many small engines.
Tell us a bit more about it. I guess it is a horizontal twin. If so, pre-war ones had finned exhaust boxes, later ones had plain boxes. Early ones were made in the London area, and post war, manufacture was taken over by Brockhurst manufacturing in Southport who spun it that BMB stood for British Made by Brockhurst!
I think manufacture ran until the early '60's. If yours has 'British Motor Boat' cast on the cord pull, that makes it pre- 1948 approx.
Early ones had a squarish petrol tank, later ones with a tank which wrapped around the flywheel.
These motors were approx 160 cc's, ran on a 20:1 fuel mix, and were rated at 4HP.
I can send you a photocopy of a handbook for the later ones, which are very similar to all models, if you give your postal address. Rick

Hi rick you are absolutely bang on the mark with your description of the engine.The ignition has villiers on the stator and a date 1943.This one has the finned exhaust box,the only difference to your description is the tank this tank goes approximately half way around the flywheel.Do you think that this makes the tank a later addition,perhaps the original had been taken off or gone missing.Or does it mean that the engine is later than 1943 and someone has used parts available to them.
It has an amal carb on it and it looks as though a lot of the parts may have been chromed although a lot of this has now come off.
We have the engine it bits at the moment and we were quite suprised how easy it all came apart and i must say that it is quite a piece of engineering nothing like the plastic pieces that you get today.And many thanks for the offer of a handbook that will help us no end.
If you dont mind sending one can you send it to

Neil Denton
21 St Oswald Road
Bridlington
East Yorkshire
YO16 7SD

Hi Denno - BMB's were nicely engineered. I think your tank is correct -my description wasn't very good. Tanks for the finned exhaust box type did partially follow the flywheel - the later tanks were more rounded shapes and wrapped right around the flywheel just leaving the flywheel top and cord pulley exposed.
There is no info available on these motors other than handbooks and old advertising literature - I will dig out the handbook this weekend to send you, plus any illustrations I have.
I'd be interested to hear when you get the motor back together and running - they can make a small boat go! Rick

hi rick thankd for that.We have decided that the parts that appear to heve been chromed we will send them off and get them rechromed,and hopefully we will be able to get some of the other parts polished up.
It is our intention when we have it built up and working to put it onto a 16ft pebble that we use on one of the local waterways for our fishing expeditions as ther is,nt a lot of flow there.
When we have it all finished i will post a picture on here.
Once again many thanks for the help and information