Hi Mark,
Thanks for remembering the old British Seagull. I have two of them out
in the shed, thinking that I will make one of them someday, as auxiliary
power for my wooden sailboat. Seagull once advertised that their virtue
was their simplicity, and how they were built for the Normandy invasion
to last about 25 hours. They said that so many surplus engines were found
in use by fishermen in Normandy that they put the engines back into
production.
I had a couple that ran for years and years. They cost more in
sparkplugs than they did in fuel, burning (or trying to) 3/4 pint oil per
gallon of gas. At least one wasn't troubled by mosquitoes. Now I'm
inspired--time to dig out these two and get going.
Bob
On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 21:48:45 -0500 (EST) Mark Moburg
<markmoburg@mindspring.com> writes:
>At 10:18 AM 10/27/97 EST, you wrote:
>>Well, Ross, my guess is that the old gas has gooed and jelled and is
>>clogging up the system. I am only guessing that as that is what
>>happened to mine and that info came from the small engine repair
>person
>>who charged me a lot to fix it. The carbs are not too cosmic and a
>good
>>cleaning should fix it. Try to remember (or count) the screw
>adjustments
>>and it should work fine. I only know this because when I did it the
>>second time, I fixed it myself for a lot less money. You might have
>a
>>gas filter in there somewhere, too. Now if only I could remember to
>run
>>the system dry before I store it.
>>
>>Larry Dickstein
>>bugide@juno.com
>>
>>"If you're stupid, you'll have to pay for it"
>>
>>On Sun, 26 Oct 1997 18:48:22 -0500 "RossOvercash" <jroverca@tiac.net>
>>writes:
>>>
>>>I find that my snowblower will not start. Of course it sat all
>summer
>>>so Ichanged the fuel, checked for spark, cleaned the plug changed
>the
>>oil etc.
>>
>====REPLY====
>Also check to see that the jets in the carb are clear; if you had old
>gas
>(particularly 2-stroke) that went bad, the jet may be completely
>clogged
>with gunk and varnish.
>
>Had this happen with an old British Seagull outboard (remember
>those???).
>Took me 10 years to figure this out. Naturally, I didn't have a boat
>or
>anything I was using it on, just the motor in the shed, but it just
>killed
>me that I couldn't make the )(*&%^%$( thing run.
>
>I'd pull the thing out every now and then, check that it had
>compression,
>clean fuel, and of course, a good spark (inevitably I'd get the
>50,000-volt
>wakeup call from the magneto), but nothing, not even a pbbbbbht. I'd
>end up
>getting so mad at it, back to the shed it went.
>
>Finally, this spring, I took the carburetor completely apart, looked
>through
>the jet, and voila! no light! Sprayed thoroughly with carb cleaner,
>reassembled, and it started on the second pull. BTW, would you
>believe that
>the carb on a British Seagull looks kind of like a little, tiny SU?
>The
>throttle cable pulls up a little piston which sits athwart the jet,
>and a
>little needle on the bottom of the piston that moves up and down with
>it.
>First time I took it apart it was sort of an eerie, deja-vu kind of
>thing:
>"I've seen that before . . ."
>
>Good luck.
>
>Mark Moburg
>MarkMoburg@mindspring.com
>Seattle, Washington
>
>
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