Dripless seal replacement on Mainship Pilot 30

[Sunspot Baby]

I am the proud new owner of a 1999 single engine Pilot 30. The dripless seal isn't. That is, it drips a little. The surveyor said not critical but should fix soon.

It looks like Mainship installed the engine and shaft, then bolted in the fuel tank over it, then glued the deck on. This seal is REALLY hard to reach.

Someone must have tackled this problem before and might give me some tips on how they accomplished it. It would take a mechanic with gorilla arms standing on their head in the bilge to reach it.

Any ideas would be helpful.

George

 

[Chrisjs]

If it is that hard to get at, pethaps it just needs adjusting. If it is a PSS seal, just loosen the retaing set screws and lever it closer towards the stern and retighten screws. We have a shaft zinc forward of our PSS to "lock" it in place. The set screws should be used once only but may be reversed bottom to top. If appropriate, certainly worth a try before dealing with the alternative.

 

[Phil Fill]

Before you loosen the set screw at least fasten a hose clamp in front of the collar so the collar can not slide forward. Most dirpless do leak a little when the shaft is turing, but when not turning should stop dripping.

There are two areas a drippless can/will leak, between the collar and the bellow/boot seal, and the O rings inside the collar. If between the collar and boot seal then slide the collar back wards for more pressure. If the O rings for a temp fix, they make Emergency Tape that stick to is self, weather oily/wet, that you could wrap around the shaft to form a seal, with a hose clamp push tight up against the E tape. You should have E tape on the boat as it comes in hand, just like duct tape If 0 rings you have to pull the shaft back ward tro get the collar off and should be done with the boat out of the water.

 

[FF]

ALL dripless seal mfg require the bellows be replaced at a specified service interval.

Sounds like you may be 3x over the time period.

Buy the parts , hire the gorilla.

OR if by chance the dripless was stuck on a std bronze packing setup you might be able to switch to the Duramax or other more modern shaft packing , and not worry about when the bladder will crack.