Saving Old Seagulls

Chek out the 'Buy it Now' price:

eBay 170126361066

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/The-bristish-seag ... dZViewItem

Form an orderly queue

He will be lucky.....

In Holland a person asks 3500 euros for 2 SD seagulls and 'enough spares to complete 3 other engines'.

Why not telling the truth: these engines are not for sale!

But Charles, the shipping is free!!!!

What kind of motor is that with that round fuel tank...

It's a 102.

Nice motor, the 102s with their round blocks and pipework are somehow more satisfying that the centuries. The water cooled exhaust is considerably quieter, and they never have head gasket problems 'cos there isn't one.

My last one was given to me by a fellow member at my yacht club. I do hope he doesn't browse ebay too often...

Hey Charles & others,
That motor looks a bit like my dear old SD61 doesn't it?....except for the condition & the prop. I'm pretty new around here but this fellow must be kidding with the price....or do people over there pay big bucks for these old motors?
Al

Well, Al, your SD is a load more scarce. It has a rare bronze bracket, too. The depth adjusting collar on yours is one that quite a few would like to get their hands on, and most of all yours has the early type power head with the original Marston style flywheel etc, and a short water jacket block.

Maybe for yours people may stretch a point, but not to the £500 mark!

The early SD was one of the best built of the 102s & certainly one of the best performing with it's swept back 2 bladed prop.
It was often tin plated on the inside & outside of the cylinder & as Charles so correctly states had the Marston type early Villiers MK1 ignition.
I've seen people start these without a rope just with a flick of the wrist.
The Marston type ignition had matching numbers stamped into the flywheel & the baseplate, these numbers always started JM & seemed to go up to the mid 2000's during the Marston reign, the highest number I've seen on an SD is 11,347 so the story of high wartime production figures appears to have a large element of truth in it.
The other Charles has got himself a pre wartime short water jacket SNP 102, it would be interesting to learn the JM number of this one as it would give a maximum indication of the total Marston production figures.

I think I'm correct in saying that SDs hold records in both hemispheres in Seagull racing running against Silver Centurys.

If you can find one with a good water jacket that hasn't been serviced with the Stilsons/mole grips & hasn't had the gearbox filled with 140 oil as many illinformed web sites recommend, you might well have found an outboard to grace the back of your clinker dingy.

As for the price the value of any item is what people are prepared to pay.
See what you get for your money.

Steel tank, almost undinkable.
Very quiet motor as most of the return coolant is directed down the exhaust, Small telltale hole.
Probably the best prop Seagull ever made.
Bronze transom bracket on quite a few.
Polished lower unit & prop.
A spark you could almost weld with.
Lots of bits to polish.

The negatives are

Mid wartime onwards no chrome at all so drive shaft tubes are very prone to rust, thinner wall on drive shaft box section, most of these have been replaced in the last 60 years.
The vast majority were long shaft.
Thinner walls on drive shaft so more prone to rust.
D16 1/2 inch reach spark plug seems to be about 3/16" to short in reach

I would catorgorise the SD as one of the most desirable of the Seagulls, It would be interesting to hear my fellow moderators views on the subject.

Charles told me about the 'flick of the wrist' starting technique last year, and I'd hate to admit the hours that I have put into attempts to emulate the phenomenon. As yet with little success, but it's rather fun.

I agree, my SD is one of my favourite Seagulls; it retains all the character of the earlier models but by that stage had been refined into a very useable motor.

I still wonder about the issue of chrome plating on these wartime SD models. I have seen a few where there is simply no trace at all of any plating on the silencer or drive shaft casing, and can't help but surmise that such an item supplied for military use may have been left unplated.

Not that a Seagull (even an SD) is at all stealthy from the noise and smoke points of view, but surely the gleam of chromium plating would have been less than desirable. Except for the Navy of course, but even there I'm confident the Admiralty would have specified plain brass in order to give the matelots something to polish...

My SNP (as yet undelivered) isn't pre-war, Charles. It's 1942 according to the lists, and differs only very slightly from the SD. We've discussed before the 'evolution rather than revolution' that saw the development of the 102 from 1936 to the eighties, and each model seems to only incorporate very minor changes.

Wartime motors still fascinate me, I'd love to get to grips with how many were made of which type and where they went. Bill Pinniger used to tell his daughters about requests for Seagull spares that came in during the late forties & fifties from countries that had never imported a Seagull; usually they came from batches supplied to special order - the implication being that they were left on beaches after an incursion by special forces.

I'm rebuilding a short water jacket SD at the moment, is there anyone out there that has what looks like an original spark plug in one that has not been fiddled with? & what is it.

If I put a D16 or a plug with a 1/2 inch reach it appears to be 3/16 too short, I do have some 3/4 inch reach plugs but can't tell if they are too long until I get it all back together with the piston in it.

Most of the Marstons used 3/4 plugs, it looks like the SD's used a 5/8 or an 11/16 reach plug does anyone know of an 18mm plug that fits this description?

Charlesp,

Is there somewhere on this site to post the pics of my old 102?

Someone there might offer me enough for it that would allow me to include it in my baggage & bring it over to visit with you blokes & swap lies about Seaguls!....over a pint or three!

But i'm more keen to see it run & use it than sell it.

Al.

Don't think the airlijnes would like you attempting to bring your SD over as hand baggage. After all it doesn't look like an outboard motor to the uninitiated, does it - more like some sort of terrorist weapon!

But if you've got any personal web space to store photos you can create a link to them, then press the IMG button on the reply form.

If you haven't then I'll put a couple up for you...

Is there somewhere on this site to post the pics of my old 102?

As CharlesP says you can post pics on here using the Img tags but first the pictures have to be stored on a server or a photo hosting site that allows direct linking from message boards. Photobucket is probably the most widely used hosting site and is designed specially for that type of thing.

There is adequate online help for using photobucket but This tutor will guide you through. It was written for users of the ybw.com forums but all the advice holds good for this forum as well. There have been a few changes to Photobucket since it was written and you can now size you pictures as you upload then to the correct size for message boards without bothering to install a resizing program. If you have a photoeditting program already then use that in preference to reduce them to 640 pixels wide first. When you come to importing them into the message board just clicking the words IMG code below the thumbnail will auto copy the URL complete with the IMG tags so it can just be pasted into your post.

It really is a lot simpler to do than it sounds.

Charles UK wrote:I'm rebuilding a short water jacket SD at the moment, is there anyone out there that has what looks like an original spark plug in one that has not been fiddled with? & what is it.

If I put a D16 or a plug with a 1/2 inch reach it appears to be 3/16 too short, I do have some 3/4 inch reach plugs but can't tell if they are too long until I get it all back together with the piston in it.

Most of the Marstons used 3/4 plugs, it looks like the SD's used a 5/8 or an 11/16 reach plug does anyone know of an 18mm plug that fits this description?

Did you find a suitable plug?

Hugo.

Charles UK wrote:If you can find one with a good water jacket that hasn't been serviced with the Stilsons/mole grips & hasn't had the gearbox filled with 140 oil as many illinformed web sites recommend, you might well have found an outboard to grace the back of your clinker dingy.

What is the latest on lubrication for a SD? Marine grease for the top nipple and a mixture of grease and 140 oil for the box?

Hugo.