Sigrid's New stuffing box

[johnvb1014]

Well, we made it to Florida and spent the last ten days or so at Bahia Honda State Park. It's a pretty neat place with manatees in the marina and nightly feeding frenzies with tarpon we are told feeding on some prey leaping from the water to escape. Spent a lot of time fixing small items on Sigrid which we didn't get to last fall when cold weather set in, but the vexing issue was an overheating stuffing box. The original had been replaced with a Buck Algonquin, probably for an 1 1/8 shaft and bored out for 30 mm shaft. Very tight tolerances with 3/16 packing too tight and 1/8 too loose. The issue when I had searched this previously was finding metric sizes for 30 mm shaft and 45 mm stern tube.

After some additional searching I came across a good article on dripless stuffing boxes (pbo.co.uk), and included was a Tides Marine seal. Tides Marine is in Deerfield Beach Fla. We made a quick trip to Deerfield Beach, picked up the seal, and installed it in the parking lot with the boat on the trailer (photo attached). The red tab is used during installation to protect the lip seal. I could probably remove it but left it in place if I have to pull the propeller shaft for some reason. The feed for the water source was from the outlet of the heat exchanger. So far, so good. I had read other threads about stuffing boxes for A25s but had not seen this type of seal mentioned.

Currently in Everglades City at the Rod and Gun Club. An amazing place, one that WillieC mentioned. Thanks!

John VB

[WillieC]

John and Sigrid, so good to hear your new shaft seal is in place and working. Looks a lot like my PSS brand.

Having never been to Fla., I think it may have been Beta Don who recommended the Rod and Gun Club in Everglades City. I hang out in the diagonal opposite corner of this great land.

Happy travels! Love your boat, and thanks for keeping us posted!

[WillieC]

Do you really have a 45 mm stern tube? Mine is a hair over 40mm, thus tricky to come up with easy cutlass and midsupport solutions.

[kerrye]

Curious as to how you knew the stuffing box was overheating?

[johnvb1014]

Do you really have a 45 mm stern tube? Mine is a hair over 40mm, thus tricky to come up with easy cutlass and midsupport solutions.

Mine is 45 mm, measured it with vernier caliper.

John VB

[johnvb1014]

Curious as to how you knew the stuffing box was overheating?

I would moniter it by touch, trying to adjust tension to yield a slow drip. Anything other than having cap off (where it would run cool) it would heat up. I had checked and adjusted engine/prop alignment, but tolerances were so close it may still have been metal on metal. Never allowed it to heat up so much as to damage shaft in any way. On our 27 this was so easy, I can only chalk it up to trying to fit SAE box to metric prop.

With new seal it runs cool to the touch with no drip. I'm happy to have a solution for about $225.

John VB