British Seagull Wartime SD
The seagull model SD was manufactured 1942 to 1945.
As far as anyone is aware the wartime 102 was not used in the D-Day landings.
Information that a Seagull actually got used in WW2 is sketchy at best,
not a single british seagull has ever been shown in use during WW2.
The war time Seagull have a flywheel commonly known as a coolie-hat, the flywheel cover can be copper or aluminium.
It also has a wartime stamp on the skeg and more bronze and brass fitting than seen on later 102's.
This is the SD as I got it, other than some missing parts it's in pretty good condition.
It has been covered in more and more lacquer over the years, which is one thing that British Seagull told you to do, as it kept the rust away, the drive tube always rusts, as the plating was never very good to start with.
Villiers ignition system for the early 102 always had brass points boxes.
This ignition setup is pretty common in the 40's and is seen on others engines of this era.
After some time polishing, buffing and painting, it’s finished.
I replaced the prop, sent the drive tube off and had it re-plated, luckily I had a spare tank cap which are getting hard to find.
The bronze transom bracket is not original to the motor, this probably would have had a heavy angle iron transom bracket that fitted to the side of the boat, so most were thrown away and replaced with more user friendly ones, the bronze one looks more in keeping with this wartime motor.
This SD 102cc model has a short cylinder head and has no studs on the head, but has studs on the crank case, later model 102's have the studs on the
cylinder and bult to the crank case.
This has the copper flywheel cover, steal fuel tank, aluminium tank mounts and brass air intake trumpet,
the brass trumpet is not fitted in the picture, it has now.
The gearbox has the wartime stamp on the skeg, the older 102's have grease nipples that are for oil,
rather than a filler plug on the front cap, the gearbox used heavier weight oil than the later models.
The
predecessor to the 102 was the Marston, the early Marston's had a
teardrop exhaust and the later ones look similar to a normal 102’s,
as they were designed by the same person and had finned cylinder head.
I think the teardrop version is a beautiful motor and no I don’t own one,
they can be fragile and early parts are very thin on the ground, plus expensive.
I like to use my motors, but not as an ornament.