[C320-list] Good stuffing box trick

[Jack Brennan]

Here’s a good stuffing box trick I learned recently from the diesel guru at Boot Key Harbor in Marathon, Fl..

I hired him to help me change the packing, seeing as the 320 is the first sailboat I’ve owned in which I could actually access the stuffing box with my 215-pound body. 

We used the Goretex packing. What he did was dip the packing liberally into a jar of waterproof axle grease before inserting it into the nut. What a difference. The shaft turned more easily and, just as important, six weeks and many hours later, I get a drip or two a minute. The stuffing box is cool to the touch after a good motoring. 

It’s very possible that the boat yard just did a lousy job when it replaced the packing a couple of years ago. I always had too many drips, and re-adjustments would last only a short time before I had to tinker with it again.  But still …

Also, for the record, my stuffing box took 3/16, not quarter-inch, packing. The water leak was easily handled by my 800-gph bilge pump. If you’re worried about it, an old bicycle tube can be wrapped around the shaft to slow the leak to a dribble. 

Hopefully, I won’t have to do it again for several years, but it is now a DIY project.

Jack Brennan
Sonas, 1998 Catalina 320
Tierra Verde, Fl.






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