Marine Trader Packing Gland

I have a drip from my packing gland with the engine off at approx 20-30/min. On sailboats I've owned in the past, the stuffing box had a rubber boot, a single compression nut and a single locking nut, both around the shaft.

The set up on my MT is below (sorry for the sideways picture, the boat is actually keel down in real life <smile>). No rubber, two nuts and no locking nuts.

I am assuming all that I need to adjust this is to slightly tighten each of the nuts on the "yoke" a 'smidge, equally, correct? I am going to pull the boat for bottom painting in a couple of weeks and will likely repack then.



Thanks-

Yes, you can adjust it by tightening the bolts. A friend had one like that and his tightened from the back side. Don’t go very much at a time. You still want it to drip when underway. Adjust it and then check it’s temperature while running with a non contact thermometer. I think the usual is about 20 to 30 degrees above sea temperature.

I believe there should be another nut on each of those studs. The packing glands I have had like that all had 2 nuts per stud.

On my friends boat, the bolt threaded in from the stern. It threaded into the forward plate. The one nut acted like a lock nut since the plate was threaded, but having said that I advised him to add a second nut...

That unit can easily be repacked with modern Duramax ,or similar, so there is no leaks or dripping stationary or underway.

The last 1/2 century has made progress in shaft packing.

Let it drip until you haul. Remove the old stuff, check shaft for scoring, install Duramax. Leave the fitting very loose initially (lots of leakage when first launched). Run the boat and tighten very gradually. Won’t take much tightening to slow the leakage way down. If you can’t hold the stuffing box in your hand it is too tight and the Duramax will melt. Go real easy with the tightening. Will take An hour or two of running to get it right. Duramax is great stuff. Will out last you and me.

I have the same stuffing box. It’s easy to repack, and you can do it normally in the water. for reference, here is what it looks like completely pulled apart. You won’t do this to just repack it. But it’s good to know what you’re dealing with if the stainless Steele Tube and the stuffing box form a leak. The stainless tube is threaded and may need to be re-sealed at some point.

Thanks for the pictures and the details. When I got down to tighten things I found the locking nuts. Backed them off, tightened a quarter turn and the drip stopped. Temp is good under power. Going to repack whenI pull the boat. Thx!

Glad it worked out for you.