Drive shaft leaking

[TRD]

Hi everyone,
I know this belongs on the maintaince area but I was trying to get an answer sometime early today if possible. I have a leak in my drive shaft packing. I seen the thread w/ the pictures and just want to make sure what I am looking at. Here are some pictures of my drive shaft. It looks like the 2 nuts are tight together. Does this mean I have NO adjustment? or if not how would I go about adjusting it. Would I move both nuts towards the back of the boat. Is it time to change out the packing? Any advide would be appreciated.

TIA
Dale

[kirk]

Looks like it's time to repack the stuffing box...
It is very easy to change the packing. Follow the shaft from the transmission to the bottom of the boat (inside) and you will find a huge nut (about the size of your closed fist). Loosen the nut to the point where it is no longer on the threads and you can move it up and down the shaft. This nut has the packing material inside. Get a packing extractor to pull out the old packing material (makes the job way easier). I got one at West Marine for $8.00-$10.00. It looks kind of like a corkscrew. It will only fit in one side of the nut, so you will know which side of the nut to pull the packing from. Make sure you buy the right size packing for your nut/shaft because only the correct width of packing will fit. If it is too large it will not fit, too small and it will leak. The packing looks like rope dipped in wax. You want to cut the rope (packing) to lengths that will form a ring around the shaft (like a belt around your waist). I use 2 to 3 rings, you may differ. Cut the packing on about a 45 degree angle and stagger the cuts as you wrap your rings around the shaft and insert them into the packing nut. MAKE SURE YOU PUT PACKING GREASE ON THE PACKING BEFORE YOU PUT THE PACKING INTO THE NUT. Don't just wrap the shaft a few times with one big peice of packing rope -- it will leak. Tighten the nut back up a about a turn or two and put the boat back into the water. You will want to look at the nut and tighten it 1/4 turn at a time until water stops driping in the boat through the packing nut. The ideal packing will drip once every 10 seconds while the shaft is turning and not at all when in nuteral.

It will take you about 30 minutes the first time you do this.

Thats it. Good luck!

[TRD]

Thanks Kirk,
Is there a better kind of wax seal then the other? brand name.

Thanks for you help. I haven't taken it apart yet but I guess I will now.

Dale

[kirk]

No Problem!

I don't think any particular brand is better. My dealer has bulk rolls of it and cuts off what I need.
Good luck!

[spharis]

I purchased GOR dripless rope last round, and I found it to not work that much better than the regular old wax rope stuff. Worked great at first, then slowly begins to drip more.

I have also read that the packing grease can be bad after a few years, and it actually hardens; requiring the removal of the shaft to replace as you then have a very hard time removing it. I think there are two schools of thought on using the packing grease.

[chpthril]

Dale,

Sound like its time for a packing change.

Sorry for the late respond, was not ignoring your PM but have been away from wireless access for 10 days.

[TRD]

Where is the best place to find this stuff. I could find it in the overtons cat. I just got online so I am planing on doing some searchs. Kirk & spharis, is the old wax seal is the way to go? Does this stuff have a name? Is there a place where I can go and get the specs for my boat (2000 21i). I looked through my manuals and couldn't find the thickness of the seal either.

Thanks

[spharis]

skidim.com

I don't know what thickness you need. I found some good images on a packing change and why not to use the "grease" here.

http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/stuffing_box

[kirk]

TRD,
Any marina or boat shop should have it. I would open yours up to see what size it would take and go from there. That is how I did mine. I just called it wax rope for my stuffing box and the marina knew what I was talking about.
The marina gave me the recommendation for the grease, but I did not use it on mine and have had no problems.
I have almost 2400 hrs on my boat and have had to repack twice.Not sure how many hours you should get between repacks.

[TRD]

Thanks everyone. I am planning on fixing this after this wkend. I don't want to take a chance on not going out this wkend.

[spharis]

I have a detailed write up on this on my new website
http://www.wakeboatworld.com/index.p...d=22&Itemid=35

TRD, any chance I can use one of those photos to give an example of what the bronze nut guys will be seeing?

[Razzman]

I have a detailed write up on this on my new website
http://www.wakeboatworld.com/index.p...d=22&Itemid=35

Which by the way looks darn good SP

[spharis]

Thanks,
Thought of trying to fill the void. I couldn't get info on half the things I have been looking for online. Hopefully we can get some articles going over there. A new site takes a looonnnnggg time to get rolling though. I think once the search engines get finished indexing everything, I should get some decent hitsd off the packings and the PSS install articles.

I need some of you guys to throw me some photos and writeups on your boats for the features.

[TRD]

TRD, any chance I can use one of those photos to give an example of what the bronze nut guys will be seeing?

Sure, don't mind at all. I printed out your write up and that is what I went by. I didn't have to replace my packing yet. I just loosen up the brass nuts and repositioned the back nut and retighten. It is not leaking as bad. I wanted to wait until after this month to replace the packing anyway. We are having a big weekend in 2 wks and I maybe the only boat there other then a pontoon. THANKS Spharis for your info. Very, very good and informative.
By the way, if you need better pics let me know. I can email you some.

Dale

[spharis]

There is a PSS shaft seal write up online at
http://www.wakeboatworld.com/index.p...id=24&Itemid=1

Hope that helps some of you out.