Saving Old Seagulls

I've been intrigued for a while now with NIPPLES and before anyone gets off track it's not what you're thinking either!

In the early days of my seagull journey with some of the wartime motors i had always thought that these motors were made to just 1 specification. Each one the same in every way. SD's that is.. not SDP's.

I've talked before about the orientation of oil nipples before with some of these and never really got a firm answer with it, until maybe now.
I had originally thought that the nipples were all aligned on the same side. Not so it seems........

Hugo, i hope you're paying attention to this. Might be something, might be nothing, but 3 motors is more than just coincidence now.

To date i've counted 3 motors including my own with a low(ish) serial number that have 2 nipples on one side of the gearcase, the other 1 in the pump housing like all the others. BUT, they're not all on the same side.

Take a closer look at this one to see what i'm on about. I know it's a junker but it shows what i've been thinking about for some time now.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/132218112481? ... EBIDX%3AIT

Curious


Jon

I have seen this too, I have a gearbox around with a large number cast vertically on one side, maybe just a case of a new mould.

So far in my early days of the SD registry I've only seen the nipple on the Port side of the straight out water pump housing. And yes, there was a change from the nipples being on the starboard side on the early motors which gives you 2 on the gearbox and the top one on the other side. The later motors had the three nipples on the Port side. Jon if you look at your post war 102 data you will probably see that the C, D, AC, and AD also had the nipples on the port though when they dropped a nipple from the box did they have a starboard nipple on the ejector pump housing or none at all? I think the cotton wheel top bush had gone by now.

The change seems to be around SD4000ish. Still way too early for me to decipher and at the present times I'm concentrating on the fundamentals and perhaps will look into the finer details later. What does your SD data tell you?

ps. Jon, I haven't received your return questionnaire on your personally owned SD/P motors yet. Shall I resend it to you?

Incidentally the ebay link photo would tell me that that is an early #'d SD. No patent inscription on the clutch lever, early tank mounts and the nipples And that is without looking at the engine #.

Yes, but what about the orientation of those oil nipples? These are completely the opposite way around to anything else we've come across.
My wartime data tells me very little so far with oil nipples except that what i managed to collect is all on the same side. This was something that a lot of you thought was irrelevant in the early days of me doing this. I'm thinking quite the opposite now. Apart from the fundamentals which to be honest doesn't really change that much except maybe the choice of materials in some of the parts (clutch lever...bronze or alloy, ignition cover...copper or alloy etc. etc.) it's the finer details that had me intrigued.

Not knowing what the nipple locations are on very late model Marstons, this could be a throwback somewhere along the line before the normal nipple positioning comes into play. My guess is that the tooling for these late model Marston gearboxes (if that's what they initially were) may have been used in some of these very early SD's as well. Another thought, this could also be BS using up any boxes that might have been manufactured for the Marston production. Unfortunately WW2 seemed to get in the way of this. 3 so far with a low(ish) number less than the 1000's might go some way to suggesting this. Everything else with a higher serial number seems to follow a set order EXCEPT for very early SD's. Just how early or how late in the serial numbers with this specification might take some time to figure out until enough data comes through. I suspect there will be a few more like this before we're done with this, but how many more i wonder?

As for anything made in the post war years, it seems (so far) that 3 nipples on the same side goes up to nearly a 9000 odd serial number (C's,D's,havn't got any HC's yet, AC's,AD's and AHC's) before we see a change in pump housings and 1 less nipple in the box.

Just about every other SD we've come across over the years has had the nipples all on the same side. Whether or not any of these earlier gearboxes (if that's what they are) had a ministry stamp remains to be seen. I have my own thoughts with this. What say the rest of you.

and yes Hugo, i'll get my arse in gear and get the information across to you (been quite busy of late, sorry)



Keith.
Similar to what you're talking about but a barge pusher box with centrally located numbers.(ignore the horrid looking prop) AND with nipples in the "normal" location. These ugly looking nipples have been changed now for something more in keeping with the rest of them.
Left click to enlarge and you'll see the numbers in front of the nipples. There's a completely different set of numbers on the end cap which matches those in the gearcase,same as any other 102 box.

Jon

I found it in my parts bin.

That i would say is from a slightly different casting to others i've seen, but more importantly it's another of those small details that can sometimes get overlooked. Whether or not this actually means anything yet we'll have to wait and see.

(i think i might even have 1 just like this kicking about somewhere)

Curious things these.


Jon