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Not so drippless shaft - 1990 E32-200

frosero7744

Member II
Hello everyone. Had a little adventure this weekend with my Dad. His first time out on my Ericson and sailing in the SF bay. We had beer, water, sandwiches, chips and salsa, and about 30 gallons of bay water after about 2 hours. My dripless shaft seal sprung a rather leaky leak and washed my sole while we sailed with an inch of water. Arghh. Needless to say my dad was surprised to see that much water and happy he had his PFD on. So i have some questions about what to do next. Im fairly new to this marine business so any advise is appreciated.

1. The exhaust hose was resting ever so slightly on the carbon seal air vent line is appears. Causing alot of wear and a black carbon ring to appear on the fiberglass. The seal connection is now pretty weak and the seal may have been worn awkwardly from the exhaust hose leaning on it. Can the vent line to removed? ive read these are not necessary on boats less than 12 mph.

2. Should or can the carbon seal be resurfaced witha bit of sandpaper?

3. i was going to move the collar up about an 1/8th inch also to get more pressure on the seal. Good idea?

4. Should i just bite the bullet and do a hang and splash to replace the carb seal and adjust the exhaust hose?

5. Other advise or ideas.


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Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Drip BeGone!

Hello everyone. Had a little adventure this weekend with my Dad. His first time out on my Ericson and sailing in the SF bay. We had beer, water, sandwiches, chips and salsa, and about 30 gallons of bay water after about 2 hours. My dripless shaft seal sprung a rather leaky leak and washed my sole while we sailed with an inch of water. Arghh. Needless to say my dad was surprised to see that much water and happy he had his PFD on. So i have some questions about what to do next. Im fairly new to this marine business so any advise is appreciated.

1. The exhaust hose was resting ever so slightly on the carbon seal air vent line is appears. Causing alot of wear and a black carbon ring to appear on the fiberglass. The seal connection is now pretty weak and the seal may have been worn awkwardly from the exhaust hose leaning on it. Can the vent line to removed? ive read these are not necessary on boats less than 12 mph.

2. Should or can the carbon seal be resurfaced witha bit of sandpaper?

3. i was going to move the collar up about an 1/8th inch also to get more pressure on the seal. Good idea?

4. Should i just bite the bullet and do a hang and splash to replace the carb seal and adjust the exhaust hose?

5. Other advise or ideas.


View attachment 27665

1- I would re-route, somehow a little, the exhaust hose so prevent future problems. I just had our 1995 PSS seal rebuilt a few months ago. I could have moved the ss piece in another quarter inch and probably been fine, but it had been about a decade since the bellows was replaced and it is good practice to keep up on the maint. Ours does not have the vent hose fitting, BTW.

2- Perhaps, and that was mentioned to me when talking to the yard before we had the new bellows put in. Regarding the carbon being thrown outwards -- this can happen if the engine is vibrating and shaking too much. I wonder how recent and how well your shaft was aligned? How old are the engine mounts?

3- I did slide ours back an eighth or a bit more this spring and the little bit of water being slung out promptly stopped. Note that PSS does not recommend reusing the little ss grub screws, altho most everyone (me too) does. :rolleyes:

4- Option that lets you sleep better. And depending on age and appearance just bite bullet and replace mounts and do a very close alignment. Good link: https://pbase.com/mainecruising/motor_mounts
There is a good article on that site for info on the PSS seal, also.

Different boat, but here is a blog entry showing our shaft seal.
http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/entry.php?140-Coupler-Shaft-Seal-and-Antifreeze

Good luck!
 
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bgary

Advanced Beginner
Blogs Author
3- I did slide ours back an eighth or a bit more this spring and the little bit of water being slung out promptly stopped. Note that PSS does not recommend reusing the little ss grub screws, altho most everyone (me too) does.

I did the same thing this spring, with the same result. I also put a shaft-clamp forward of the collar, just as a belt-and-suspenders measure.

I DID use new set-screws, largely because they (PYI) were so adamant about not re-using the old ones that they sent me new ones, for free.

$.02
Bruce
 

frosero7744

Member II
okay. im going to give moving the collar up a bit and see if that settle the leak down. new screws seem easy enough. Im going to look into removing the vent line also if its not needed. seems like a slight bit of extra pressure there is rather undesirable and can screw up the whole thing.
 

bgary

Advanced Beginner
Blogs Author
A couple of random thoughts (worth everything you've paid for them)

-- I wouldn't remove the vent hose. I'd reposition the top end (it doesn't have to be straight, it just needs to let air come out) so that it clears the exhaust hose and still ends well above the waterline. Without the tube you'll end up with water coming out of the collar into the boat, which sort of negates the concept of "dripless".

-- The pattern of black stripes lined up with the carbon plates may (?) indicate that there is some wear (or grit, or something) on the plates themselves. You should be able to separate the plates a little and see. Maybe even run a strip of cloth between the surfaces. Then clean that section of bilge so you can see if it reappears. Might be nothing, might be an indicator of something, don't know. (if the plates are shedding carbon dust, it "might" mean that they're already being pressed together too firmly, and so moving the collar for more tension might not be a good idea.)

-- Best advice I can offer, call PYI and ask them. Send them a copy of the photo and see what they say. I talked to Kenny, super helpful when I called.
https://www.pyiinc.com/
425-355-3669

Bruce
 

tenders

Innocent Bystander
I installed a “dripless” shaft seal in 1995 and have replaced the bellows twice since then. I don’t like it, for three reasons: the shaft is only slightly less drippy than a properly-installed packing gland; maintenance requires removal of the shaft from the engine coupling (a bear of a job on my boat); and the failure mode for a torn rubber boot is catastrophic.

I had a gas leak dissolve the rubber on the last bellows - fortunately, the boat was out of the water at the time.

The next time my shaft is out I’m replacing it with a traditional packing gland and newfangled Goretex/Teflon packing. I regret not doing this the last time.
 

Kevin A Wright

Member III
I installed a “dripless” shaft seal in 1995 and have replaced the bellows twice since then. I don’t like it, for three reasons: the shaft is only slightly less drippy than a properly-installed packing gland; maintenance requires removal of the shaft from the engine coupling (a bear of a job on my boat); and the failure mode for a torn rubber boot is catastrophic.

I had a gas leak dissolve the rubber on the last bellows - fortunately, the boat was out of the water at the time.

The next time my shaft is out I’m replacing it with a traditional packing gland and newfangled Goretex/Teflon packing. I regret not doing this the last time.

I had a friend whose dripless seal used ATF fluid with a reservoir. The reservoir developed a leak and the ATF fluid turned the bellows into jelly and it slid right off the shaft log. If I hadn't been cruising close by it would have resulted in a sinking. Water comes in real fast from an open shaft log and it's really hard to plug with the limited access and the prop shaft going through the middle. As it was I wasn't able to get the inflow stopped before the water was up to your calves in the cabin (just shy of the battery terminals). And we were 30 miles from the nearest haul out.

As it was we got him to the haul out 15 minutes before they left for the day so didn't have to pull watch all night. But another friend had to spend the whole trip upside down in the old with a flashlight keeping an eye on my jury rig repairs.

I've got a good old fashioned stuffing box with Teflon packing thank you. About once every 5 or 10 years I tighten it a fraction of a turn.

KISS

Kevin Wright
E35 Hydro Therapy
 

Frank Langer

1984 Ericson 30+, Nanaimo, BC
Hi Kevin,
How did you seal off the shaft log to stop the water coming in? Just wondering on car I ever have to do that!
Thanks,
Frank
 

Kevin A Wright

Member III
Hi Kevin,
How did you seal off the shaft log to stop the water coming in? Just wondering on car I ever have to do that!
Thanks,
Frank

It was dicey. At first we just stuffed rags around the prop shaft and poked them into the shaft log as best we could, but the water pressure kept blowing them back out fairly quickly and we couldn't run the motor to get to a haul out (and of course not a breath of air around).

I finally managed to slide the bellows back in place on the shaft log and get a hose clamp around it, but the rubber was so soft and jelly like and everything so slippery from the ATF fluid that it wouldn't stay in place. So I tightened the clamp as much as I dared and then took some spare electrical wire we had and tied off the seal unit itself to a few spots aft of the shaft log, keeping a little pressure on it so it wouldn't slide forward. There wasn't anything to tie off to in any angle that would be real advantageous, but luckily we had a big spool of wire.

So we then spent the next 6 hours motoring to the haul out with my one crew hanging upside down keeping an eye on this jury rig, and me motoring alongside in my boat acting as standby life raft and tug. Luckily we made it in time and they got it up in the slings and were willing to stay over an hour or so because she'd taken on so much water it was too heavy to lift until we'd pumped her out.

A very long and nerve racking day. I should also mention the start of this episode was hearing a faint shout across the water. His boat was about a half mile away and my friend was crewing for him. He was in his late 70's, diabetic, and with a bad heart. When I looked over all I could see was a guy back going up and down, up and down and the boat angling towards the shore about 2 miles away. Do you know that from the back a guy running a manual bilge pump looks a lot like a guy doing CPR?

Kevin Wright
E35 Hydro Therapy
 

bgary

Advanced Beginner
Blogs Author
It was dicey.

Interesting (and mildly terrifying...) thread.

I've thought about how to jury-rig a patch for a blown bellows, but don't really have any great ideas from the things that I have on the boat. I've thought about (for example) having a sheet of rubber large enough to form a tube around the bellows, securing it around the shaft-log and the non-rotating plate with hose clamps, and then wrapping the crap out of it with duct-tape. In theory... that would keep water out and still allow me to run the motor. In practice, I suspect it would be a nightmare to try to secure in place, in cramped space, with water pouring in....

One of my other thoughts, depending on conditions, would be to stuff rags into the shaft tunnel from the *outside* to mitigate the flow. But that's kind of a "last possible option", because going into the water seems like a high-risk/low-reward choice if there are any other choices on the list.

Bruce
 

Kevin A Wright

Member III
One of my other thoughts, depending on conditions, would be to stuff rags into the shaft tunnel from the *outside* to mitigate the flow. But that's kind of a "last possible option", because going into the water seems like a high-risk/low-reward choice if there are any other choices on the list.
**************
If we were just going to sit there and bob, or had been able to sail (with the tranny in gear so the shaft wouldn't turn), I probably could have kept the rags stuffed in from the inside well enough for the pumps to keep up with the leakage. Although with the water calf deep it is awfully hard to determine accurately if you are gaining or losing ground. Stuffing something in from the outside did cross my mind as well and I do keep a diving mask on board so I can do stuff like that, but that would have been an absolute last resort. I vaguely remember wishing for a large lump of plasticine clay at one point, but there were a lot of odd thoughts going through my mind at the time and I'm not sure that would have worked out well either.

I did consider taking off the raw water intake hose to let the engine help bail, but didn't have any screen or filter to put across it and with all the crap floating in the water the risk of plugging the impeller wasn't worth the small increase in pumping. Actually the best method of 'pumping' was to stand in the cabin with a bucket and pitch water out into the cockpit and let it drain out the scuppers. Once I'd gotten the leak stopped enough, that's what we did to gain enough ground that we felt we could make the long run to the haul out.

And once the imminent threat of sinking was over, my thinking had moved on to how we could get the boat to a haul out quick enough. And in this circumstance the best option was motoring. I could have towed them but I calculated that would have probably meant getting there too late and sitting up all night watching the hole in the bottom of the boat. So we went for it.

The other complication in all this was our crew situation. The older gentleman was 6'3" and had arms long enough to reach the stuffing box, but his eyesight was so bad with the diabetes, he couldn't see what was going on. My other friend is about 5'6". He could see what was going on, but couldn't quite reach in far enough to get his hands on the problem. Thank god I've got long arms and good eyes. I just happened to be on the other boat half a mile away when it all started.

All's well that ends well and we had a merry time for the next 3 days waiting for seal parts and trying to clean ATF fluid off of every known surface in his Hunter 28.

And I know they make much better dripless seals now. His was one of the first ones out and it lasted for many years before this incident.

But you will pry my stuffing box out of my cold, wet, pruned hands.

Kevin Wright
E35 Hydro Therapy
 

Frank Langer

1984 Ericson 30+, Nanaimo, BC
Thanks, Kevin! Sounds like a really scary experience! I guess innovation is key in these crises to see what will work. But from your experience I know that rags alone won't work and some way of forcing the bellows into place is needed. Very helpful.
Frank
 

bigd14

Contributing Partner
Blogs Author
When I purchased my most recent boat, I found a box containing a toilet bowl wax ring. I was mystified by this for awhile until I realized it was in with some thru hull plugs as an emergency sealer kit. This material seems a perfect choice for sealing all manner of leaks. Not sure how it would work on a spinning shaft, but I will certainly be carrying one on the boat from here on.
 

Kenneth K

1985 32-3, Puget Sound
Blogs Author
Hi Kevin,
How did you seal off the shaft log to stop the water coming in? Just wondering on car I ever have to do that!
Thanks,
Frank

It's pretty hard to stop a leak on the pressure side, compared to the inlet side, where whatever packing material you use will be sucked further into the void to help seal it.

Being able to think about it ahead of time, I'd probably drive down on the boat with a syringe full of PTFE thread sealant, Mar-Lube, non-hardening silicone, or something similar, and inject it into the shaft log opening, all around the prop shaft. Hopefully the incoming rush of water would help pull the sealant further into the shaft log until it forms a seal. You might be able to do the same thing with the wax ring idea, if you keep jamming it far enough into the shaft log. The pressure of the water outside the leak will help keep the sealant packed in place.

But none of this would do any good unless planned out ahead of time, with the supplies ready to go. Speaking of which, maybe I should fill a large syringe full of Goo and keep it on hand, ready to go, in the emergency supplies kit.
 
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Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
I think that a failed bellows would be not quite so catastrophic.

I carry latex cloth and hose clamps. I plan to wrap the spouting bellows, wrap with line, then complete the seal with the hose clamps.

That renders the drive shaft inoperable, but the engine in neutral can still be used for battery charging.

If the contact plates of the dripless shaft seal catch debris, or get corroded or glopped up, they spew water. The solution is to spread them with a screwdriver and wipe out with a rag (while enjoying water in your face).

The bellows are to be changed out (by a boatyard, probably) every 6-10 years.

True, it is not a good idea to pour acid on the rubber, or be oblivious to the condition of critical equipment, but dripless seals are fairly popular and do work as advertised.

We have a boatyard here that declines to install them for boats bound in the Transpac race (or at least that's what one mechanic claims). One failed once, and scared the owner.

My theory is think it through and pay attention to all gear even after the box it came in is thrown away.

To replace a functioning dripless with a bronze stuffing box simply as a prophylactic measure seems to me unnecessary.
 
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