I have a port prop shaft packing gland that I never touched for 2 years since I bought the boat (1978 53MY, 2" shafts), and it never leaked a drop except when the boat was splashed after 5 months in winter storage. This spring, I noticed that it wobbles when the shaft turns and it's a little off center. It still doesn't drip. I know it's the packing gland wobbling because I put a gauge stick against the shaft and it's running true. There must be a foreign object or a wad of packing material going around inside as the shaft turns. I guess I should'a thought about the gland when it DIDN'T drip, because it's probably overheated from being too tight. I hope it didn't score the shaft. When I run it at 2200 RPM, it warms up to the touch while the starboard packing gland stays cool.

So do you need to haul the boat to repack one of these? It's a 2 piece set of collars that fit one inside the other and it's adjusted by threaded bolts on 2 sides of the gland with nuts and locking nuts to squeeze the forward collar into the packing material held in the aft collar. I'd like to save the $ and do it in the water, but I've never done one. I've read the threads about rudder packing: having the right material on hand in advance, using a dentist's pick to pull the old material out, overlapping diagonal cuts in the material, etc.

I assume you just unscrew the nuts, pull off the forward collar, pick out the old stuff and reinsert the new packing material in layers, but it seems like the water pressure coming in would be pushing the new stuff out before you can get it pushed in properly.

And I'd rather not sink the boat.

Any actual experiences with this type of packing gland would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Doug