Spartan Seacock Maintainence

[James Hazard]

I'm looking for the proper maintainence of a spartan seacock on my new cape dory 27. I have several of them that are frozen. Once they are free, what kind of lube should I use?

[Duncan Maio]

James:

First, congratulations on your new vessel. Our CD27 was our first real boat, and we couldn't be happier with the choice.

First, freeing the barrel requires removal of the nuts on the end opposite the handle, and then tapping with a mallet or wood block and hammer on the end of the barrel to free it. Only use what force is required, and be careful of the threads. I ususally leave the nuts on the end of the barrel to help protect the threads.

Step two is cleaning and resurfacing the barrel with lapping compound (from the auto parts store). clean everything up, then apply lapping compound and work the barrel back and forth in the seacock until it operates smoothly, tightening the nuts as you go. Let the lapping compound do the work.

Finally, clean off the lapping compound, apply a good waterproof grease (I use wheel bearing grease; you will get lots of opinions in the next day or so) and reassemble. Tighten just enough so that the seacock is operable, but not too difficult to work the handle. If you are going to work on several of the seacocks, make sure you are on hand (with wrenches in those hands) when she goes in the water, just in case.

You will want to set aside a whole day, several beers, and a box of band-aids for this project. You might as well do all the seacocks at this point, and check hoses and clamps while you are at it.

Happy sailing!

[M. R. Bober]

The good news is that you have purchased a wonderful boat. The bad news is the access to the cockpit scuppers' seacocks (it's about the only thing I miss about TIA MARI 1979 CD27.)

I have considered the possiblilty that war criminals chose the location of those two maintenance nightmares. Really loooooooooooooong arms are helpful as it the ability to "cork screw" into the cockpit lockers.

Every best wish,
Mitchell Bober
Sunny Annapolis (make a left at Spa Creek), MD

[Steve Laume]

Don't pull all the seacock barrels at once mark them with duct tape wrapped around the handles and label each one with a marker. I did this and brought them home to wash in a bucket of hot deturgent and then planned to clean them up reallly good. This was planned to save time at the boat and do a better job. It all worked well except that the cleaning washed off the labels and It took me a long time back at the boat doing the prince and glass slipper routine trying to find the right barrel for the right seacock. Next time I will engrave the handles so it can't wash off. Live and learn, Steve.

[Dalton]

Spartan has the basic procedure in their catalog and it's available on line. The procedure above is the expanded, and excellent advice for your situation. Spartan also sell a kit with wrenches and water proof seacock grease. A little tub will probably last a life time.

[Dick Barthel]

I learned early on that a lot of board participants use Morey's Red Premium Water Proof multi-purpose grease. Don't put on too much or you will have a hard time getting the barrel to go in far enough. Excess will get squeezed out any how. Also, remember if you are cleaning with kerosene, be careful cleaning the parts attached to the hull as the kerosene can detoriate rubber and sealants used in and around the through hull fitting.

I take them out one at a time and put the parts in individual seal top one gallon plastic bags and throw a label into each bag. I clean them one at a time a put them back into a clean bag to return them to the boat.

I can attest that the first year it was a royal pain but it gets easier with each passing year. Good luck and have some fun.

Dick

[Emil Maurer]

Using the red grease will stop the freezing problem. I, too, have found it far superior to the Spartan Grease. You will be able to disassemble the seacocks with much less trouble. You can find it at your local NAPA store under this code, NAPA Red Grease, NCB 10005 Lucas.