I just acquired a Silver Century British Seagull to provide auxiliary propulsion on my sailboat. I got a steal on this as it is a 1983 version of the timeless classic that probably has about 20 hours on it. It still has most of the paint on the prop! $100 and it was mine (the lady was asking $50 but I just couldn't take that much advantage of her). I will be adding some pics of it and some of my latest work on the boat to the blog in the next couple of days.
Randy Rain
You are right- it's an absolute classic!
Tiny, elegant, and probably worth a lot more than you paid for it.
What are you going to be pushing around with it?
The Worlds Best Outboard Motor
Alas, I have owned a couple.
The worst thing about them is that they never wear out. You are cursed forever or at least until you give it away as I finally did.
Make sure you have the right gas oil mixture. I think it's 10/1. It seems very rich, but it you mix it too thin, you won't get enough compression for it to run.
Mine was from the mid 80's I think. It had a plastic gas tank that always leaked around the outlet petcock. It leaked a lot.
Mine had 2 modern convieniences that yours might not have.
There was a spring that automatically wound up the pull string for you so you didn't have to wind it around the pulley 20 times whenever you hoped to run it. It's called a recoil starter.
There was also a lever to disconnect the motor from the propeller so you could get it running without crashing into anything. It's called a clutch.
Those British are so clever.
I recommend taking out the spark plug so the string is easier to pull. The prop will turn a little faster and it's never going to start anyway.
