dripless stuffing - am I missing something?

[Andrew Blight]

Having read a number of enthusiastic endorsements of dripless stuffing, I decided to shell out half a boat unit and get some, as I took on the completion of my drive shaft restoration. Surprised I was (I don't know why Yoda comes to mind) to receive a few sticks of what looks and feels like a green dog-chew stick - hard and leathery material that basically seems to be rope sausage made with a little green teflon goo. Surprised more was I when I actually dismantled my CD 30 stuffing box for the first time and found that "box" is a bit of an exaggeration. There is barely room inside this overgrown hex nut for the two rings of flax stuffing needed to sandwich the dripless packing, leaving a space only big enough for about one quarter of one stick of green packing, shredded into lumpy pieces as best I could. The whole thing was like a very badly made sandwich, only relieved by plentiful amounts of lubricating teflon goo. I look forward with anticipation (!) to this construct hitting the water. What is the idea of making this material in the form of fat little straight sticks to go into a narrow space around a shaft? Am I being too linear-thinking here?

And another thing. People actually change their packing with the boat in the water? The mind boggles. Why a space so small and packing (both flax and dripless) so darned hard and inflexible?



ablight@acorda.com

[Lee H. Hodsdon]

Andrew,

I used two sticks of the green dog-chew stick, two pieces of teflon packing and the container of green teflon goo (don't you like the techincal descriptive terms!) on my 25D. Check that you have used enough.

Got to go back to work, I'll e-mail more details later.

Sincerely,

Lee



lhodsdon@nh.ultranet.com

[Russell]

Very soon, I plan on using some of the "green dog-chew" on my CD 36, and I would like to do it right before it goes into the water.

[Lee H. Hodsdon]

Sorry,

When I installed the "green dog-chew" on our 25D (as I said to Andrew, isn't it great to talk technical) the transmission was removed thus increasing the amount of access space. I removed the shaft coupling half, then loosened the lock nut on the stuffing box and removed the stuffing box nut. The old packing was removed and discarded. The shaft was 1" in diameter, and the packing 1/4". The rudder was placed hard over allowing the shaft and propeller to move aft. I cut two pieces of the new packing to fit around the shaft. I used teflon packing, but regular flax would have been as good. The cuts were on an angle, and the length was just short of the full circumference of the shaft. My idea being that when the nut was tightened the packing would lengthen slightly, and needed somewhere to go. This first piece of packing was coated with 1/2 of the green teflon lubricant supplied with the kit and placed at the forward end of the packing nut. Then the GDC (see above) was pressed into the nut to a point where I could just get the second piece of packing (lubricated with the remaining green teflon lube) into the nut with a couple of threads remaining. I then slid the nut over the shaft, and tightened the nut slowly to compress the GDC to remove any voids. I was carefull to not overtighten the nut, only tightening by hand. I removed the nut and added more GDC until the nut was full, without voids, with the second ring of packing in place. The nut was reinstalled and tightened by hand awaiting launch. I plan to check leakage with the boat on the trailer prior to launch, then adjusting as necessary while motoring up river to the mooring. I'll let you know how this all works out, I go in May 10.

Sincerely,

Lee



lhodsdon@nh.ultranet.com

[Larry Austin]

Can the stuffing be changed with the boat in the water?



laustin@us.ibm.com

[Bob]

Just replaced the packing on my Cape Dory 27 in the water with no problems. (Only a small amount of water leaks into the boat.) To replace the packing, only the packing nut needed to be removed.

I used 3 wraps of 3/16 after trying the 1/4. (It looked like 3/16 was used before). If someone can tell me 1/4 is the correct size maybe I should try again. The boat has not been motored very far and the packing nut needed to be fairly tight to stop a drip when not motoring.

Thanks!

[Mike Everett]

For what it's worth, the manual states that all Cape Dory yachts use 1/4 inch packing.
I hope so, because I've got some 1/4 flax to install this week.



everett@megalink.net