Repacking the stuffing box

I have to repack my stuffing box on both my rudder and my shaft. I know the rudder won't leak, but what will I be dealing with on my Trawler shaft? Will it be a ton of water coming into the boat as I remove the existing packing? Do I need to wait until I pull it out of the water? Any advice would be appreciated.


Thanks,

I do not remove all the packing. I just keep adding a ring as needed.

Adelaide said:

I have to repack my stuffing box on both my rudder and my shaft. I know the rudder won't leak, but what will I be dealing with on my Trawler shaft? Will it be a ton of water coming into the boat as I remove the existing packing? Do I need to wait until I pull it out of the water? Any advice would be appreciated.


Thanks,

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We have taken out all the old shaft packing with only minor water intrusion. YMMV.

repacking the stuffing box

I have done mine while the boat is in the water. I measure and cut my
packing before I remove the gland. Water does come in and the first time
it make you ? why you didn't wait till the boat was hauled out. It's not
really that bad, and I have done it in the water more than once. Good luck.
Yo

sooner or later you will have to remove the old stuff.
You just about gotta have one of those cork screw remover thingys.
I don't know the tecnical or yaghty name for it but doing it in the water is not a problem at all. Like YO said get all the stuff ready first.

fear not. You shouldn't get more than a quart of water in your bilge.
easy for the pump to handle. Once you get the last ring out it shouldn't take more than 10 seconds to put the first one in.

When I changed mine. The PO had just wound the packing material around the shaft.
Don't do that cut the rings.

SD

skipperdude said:

Like YO said get all the stuff ready first.

SD

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this makes me laugh b'c when we did ours, the PO had left a ton of the packing material. YEA. So we set to work, pulled out all the old stuff, cut three new rings of the new and started to stuff it. No way in heck would it fit. Not so YEA. It was 1/8" too big. So we had to leave the project mid way and get the right size. Really hardly any water came in so it was not a big deal but I wouldn't count on that. Our lesson learned was not to trust anything the PO had left on the boat!

Thanks guys, I think I will tackle this project Saturday.

One other thing, I noticed that the bolts for the stuffing box have like 4-5 nuts on each side all lined up one after the other. What gives with that?

Vibration. Most likely the PO added them as jam nuts becaus they will vibrate loose and fall off.
shouldn't need more than 2 per side.
Tighten one to where it will drip a little when running then use the other to tighten like the small nut on the propellar. One nut tightened onto the other will jam it to prevent vibration from loosening it up.

Pineapple girl made a good point If you don't know what size packing to buy get several and return the one you don't need. When you pull the old out you should see easy enough what the proper size is
SD

Not that much water comes in...instead of those expensive corkscrew packing removers that break too easily...I use long deck screws with a phillips head to drive into the packing and vice grips to pull out...cheap and way more effective.

Alright, I did both my shaft and rudder in about 1 1/2 hours. It wasn't too bad at all. I just have some scrapped up hands and a nice bruise on my hand from trying to pull the stuffing box apart, then I realized I could wiggle it out . After all said and done, it's a fairly easy process. Thanks for the help guys.

BTW, I just used the Flax Pack that West Marine has (PO had it on the boat already). I guess this will drip when running the boat? Looking forward to trying the GTO dripless next time.

Adelaide said:

Alright, I did both my shaft and rudder in about 1 1/2 hours. It wasn't too bad at all. I just have some scrapped up hands and a nice bruise on my hand from trying to pull the stuffing box apart, then I realized I could wiggle it out . After all said and done, it's a fairly easy process. Thanks for the help guys.

BTW, I just used the Flax Pack that West Marine has (PO had it on the boat already). I guess this will drip when running the boat? Looking forward to trying the GTO dripless next time.

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Drip is the description...but if you get it just right...it can be barely an ooze.

As long as you see moisture and the shaft is staying cool you are right there. You don't have to have water slinging around to keep her cool...especially if you shaft generally turns less than 2000rpm.

psneeld said:

Drip is the description...but if you get it just right...it can be barely an ooze.

As long as you see moisture and the shaft is staying cool you are right there. You don't have to have water slinging around to keep her cool...especially if you shaft generally turns less than 2000rpm.

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Thanks, what temperature is too hot for the shaft?

??? never measured it. .
To hot to touch sound right to me.

Any one else??.SD

No more than just-warm...if that. Really warm/hot and you have over-tightened...

There is no "right" answer that I am aware of. You don't want it so hot to damage stainless/bronze (unlikely)... or too hot to "melt/deteriorate" the stuffing...usually you will see the packing in a small pile in front of the tube (usually where we all are and need to back off a tad).

i just did one of mine, yes in the water and yes water does pour... not gushing but almost enough to rinse your hands under. but really no problem, remember to cut the packs at an angle and install them with the cut in different spots so you dont have 3 rings of packing with the cut on top of each other.
several mechs i have asked say to tighten only loose or until no drip is visible and then run boat and re-tighten to where you get a slight drip.
i still have one rudder pack to do and thats a bitch, these things are really hard to reach.

I was told that a safe rule of thumb for underway box temperature is about 20 degrees above ambient water temp. Seems to work out for us

Per said:

... remember to cut the packs at an angle and install them with the cut in different spots so you dont have 3 rings of packing with the cut on top of each other.

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I don't recommend cutting them at an angle unless you have a mandrel and experience doing that sort of thing. It is too difficult to get the length correct and the results will probably be disappointing.

Wrap the packing around the shaft where there is room and straight cut it. The link provides some good information.

SepcoUSA.com; Resources