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Old 10-02-2015, 05:43 AM   #56
Marin
Scraping Paint
 
City: -
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 13,745
Quote:
Originally Posted by Capt.Bill11 View Post

Marin apparently pulls all his packing out at least once a year, looks at it and reinstalls it. Otherwise I have no idea how he would know it's true condition after 13 years of use.

As to GFO turning to "plastic" due to the box running hot, well if they say so. Or is it only people using GFO that some how manage to keep over tightening their boxes?
If the packing gland is not dripping or is just barely dripping and the gland and log are running dead cold it's a pretty fair bet the packing is in good shape. I don't have to pull the pistons every year on a perfectly running engine to know that they're in good shape, either. Even my dog understands this fairly rudimentary logic.

But for those who cannot make the connection between a piece of equipment that's operating correctly and the internal condition of that piece of equipment, we just had the packing in our PNW boat changed the other week, so that's how we know what shape it was in after all those years. It didn't really need changing but as the yard was doing work there anyway we hed them change it.

Apparently they see a sufficient number of problems with Gore and other types of "synthetic" packing to not recommend them although they will install them if an owner requests it. This is not a toy boat boatyard, by the way. With 35 and 165 ton Travelifts (I had thought it was 150 tons but just learned it's 165) at least half their work is large yachts and commercial fishing and crabbing boats with recreational power and sail boats, wood, glass and metal, making up the rest. So they've had a wee bit of experience with this sort of thing.
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