12-71TI rebuilds-dripless stuffing boxes/shaft seals

[Boatsb]

I used the standard flax last year on my shafts and ran about 150 hours with little if any change to the 6 drops a minute. The shafts don't get hot and I have neoprene clamped in a half collar over the stuffing boxes so spray is caught and put back down instead of spraying in the bilge.

[Captned]

I have had my boat for over six years and have never adjusted my packing glands because they have never dripped a drop or got hot! I'm dying to pull them apart and install new packing but why??? This has always been somewhat of a puzzle to me. Any suggestions?

Captned
46 78 Con

[MikeP]

Dang, you need to get in their right away and pull that old packing out and put in new stuff! Otherwise, you risk belonging to the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" crowd!

Seriously...I'd leave it alone!

[captddis]

I use the white teflon packing and have used it since the mid 80's. It goes about 5 years without adjustment. I service a Trojan that was repacked with the teflon in 1994, still going strong and never been adjusted! I wonder how long it will go?

[jim rosenthal]

Good article recently in Passagemaker about the dripless packing glands...which also states that most things work well if they're maintained. If not...well, you know the rest of the story.

I bought my PSS seals when Blue Note was repowered in 1998. I have had no trouble with them. I have kept an eye on them. One thing I asked Tom Slane's techs to do this go around was check the bellows and see if they need to be replaced. This would be the time to do it.

Dripless seals have one other advantage over standard shaft logs, which hasn't been discussed here- they tolerate misalignment better than the old-fashioned shaft logs do. No one intentionally runs their boat when the shaft alignment is out, or they shouldn't, but alignments do drift, and the dripless seals are not bothered by that the way the bronze shaft logs are.

I have to say that when I bought them, I don't think the Gore-Tex/Teflon alternative was available. Had it been, I might have done something different. But, so far, I have been happy with the dripless seals. Mine are PSS, incidentally- I can't comment on any of the others.