[C320-list] Wet Bilge due to packing gland. Normal?

[Jeff Hare]

I only have experience with the" Gore GFO" brand of packing. 

I don't know if the gore-tex packing at west marine is exactly the same stuff or not. 

There are other PTFE/graphite packing materials, but I'm referring only to those made with the Gore GFO fibers and I ordered it online. 

-Jeff

Brad Kuether <bkuether at comcast.net> wrote:

Jeff - Assume GFO means the gortex packing....




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Hare" <catalina at thehares.com>
To: <C320-List at Catalina320.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2011 11:24 AM
Subject: Re: [C320-list] Wet Bilge due to packing gland. Normal?



Hello,

This is an opinion piece related to the shaft seal and dry bilge so 
obviously you're free to disagree.

I used to be a big believer in the PSS shaft seal. I still think its a good 
product. But the GFO product does just as good a job as the old model pss 
did (considering that burping the seal let in way more water than my GFO 
packing does today).

Now that only the vented version is available i'm not as sold since (for me) 
it adds additional points of failure that I'm not as comfortable with.

The likelihood of a GFO failure is minuscule compared to the likelihood of 
some part of the PSS system failing. And the results of a failure in the PSS 
would likely be a bigger problem than a GFO/stuffing box failure.

So, that's why I switched to GFO after 5 happy years without incident using 
the old model PSS even though the company sent me a free upgrade to the 
vented version and strongly urged me to use this instead.

-jeff