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Help My dripless seal is dripping


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I've never had one before  , had sail drives and the old fashioned packing type.

 

So it sat there for a while behaving itself then last night while battery charging decided to let some water in.

 

Is there some routine maintenance I have been missing? What should be my first point of inspection to try and resolve?

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If it's a PSS type,ie a rubber bellows type tubing providing pressure to keep the two mated surfaces together, one on the end of the bellows and the other affixed to the shaft, then occasionally a bit of sand or whatever will Lodge between the bearing faces, disturbing the seal. To fix, draw back the bellows so that a little water flows in. This should flush out any contaminants. Also, you need to check the position of the bearing on the shaft. It is held in place by a couple of grub screws and has a nasty habit of creeping up the shaft thereby decreasing the pressure provided by the bellows that is needed to maintain the seal.

If it's the lip seal type then these require the occasional shot of grease via the hopefully provided grease nipple.

The lip seal contains a not very good quality stainless steel spring to keep the lip seal edges against the shaft. These rust away over time. Replacing the lip seal is easy but a drydock job, unfortunately. Current wisdom seem to be that you remove the spring from the seal and replace it with a rubber O-ring to provide the neccessary tension.

There may well be other kinds of shaft seal but these are the only types that I have experience with. Good luck.

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Chatfield for me,and I have one,shot of grease every 6 months if I remember. if seal does go can undo 2 flange bolts and use normal packing and retighten        pss from memory can undo bellows  and give faces a very light sand,will get water in hull

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Here's a photo

 

I may have inadvertently fixed it according to the above. I gave the rubber sleeve on the engine side a wriggle and a bump and water came out, but it hasn't dripped since.

 

Need to run the engine now, but busy as hell till Monday and don't want to start something I may not be able to finish.

 

  

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If it's a face seal it pays to just check it has enough pressure on the bellows from time to time. Like the water rat says ,it pays to back it up with a split hose on the propshaft and a couple of hose clips,or use whatever they sell to do the same job.

When you disturb it by altering something like alignment or perhaps removing the shaft for cutless bearings etc, they need to be rebedded or replaced. A bit like a valve grind. I use toothpaste.

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If it's a face seal it pays to just check it has enough pressure on the bellows from time to time. Like the water rat says ,it pays to back it up with a split hose on the propshaft and a couple of hose clips,or use whatever they sell to do the same job.

When you disturb it by altering something like alignment or perhaps removing the shaft for cutless bearings etc, they need to be rebedded or replaced. A bit like a valve grind. I use toothpaste.

I only know this from doing it.

Don't overclamp it , it distorts the shape and might damage the rubber, back it up like suggested above. Obviously get rid of that rusty hoseclip. And I think they say replace every 6 or 10 years in the instructions, so bear that in mind.

 

In the meantime , toothpaste. seriously.

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