I've mentioned a couple of times that the stuffing boxes on Cygnet needed to be re-packed. I hoped to put this off until winter time, after we hauled the boat. Alas, that was not to be. The starboard stuffing box could not be kept from leaking and everything I read about continued tightening of the stuffing nut was bad - scoring of the shaft, possible long term damage, etc. Everything I read also said that the stuffing box could be repacked while in the water, if you had good bilge pumps and strong nerves. Some articles suggested stuffing the nut with a cloth while cutting the flax to length. I had another bright idea of cutting a piece of flax material first, then holding that in place with a cable tie until I had dug the old material out of the box. I bounced this idea off the Club's TechGuy, Jim Shilling. Jim repacked his stuffing box over the winter - knew how to do it, was mechanically inclined, could fit into the bilge without major surgery, and had the tools. He suggested that someone who knew what to do repack the Cygnet's stuffing box, rather than me. I agreed. Jim and Sue volunteered to repack one evening during the week. All I had to do was buy the stuffing material and dinner.
It turns out that the stuffing material comes in three major styles: flax, Teflon coated flax, and Teflon itself with a lubricant. There is a graphite material available, but I could not find it in West Marine or Boat/US stores in my area. We chose the Teflon coated flax. I called a dealer to ask what size packing material Cygnet needed. The dealer suggested a size that was the wrong size but Patsy wisely bought one of every size available. We thought two feet of material would be plenty. It was - for one stuffing box. Sadly, Cygnet came with two boxes.
Jim had always wanted to repack the boxes while the boat was in the water. He read the same articles I did and didn't think we would sink the boat, even if we did nothing to keep water from flowing in. He hated the idea of taking on water, so he suggested that we take an old inner tube, cut a strip out of it, and wrap the rubber strip around the shaft after we removed the nut. We'd hold the rubber strip in place with duct tape while we cleaned the box, cut the material to length, and reassembled the box. Jim actually ended up using some swimming pool liner material, rather than an inner tube, but the principle was the same.
Here is Jim as he begins work.
There is actually a fair amount of room on the starboard side. The stuffing box is highlighted by the orange arrow (Go VOLS!)
Here, Jim is wrapping the stuffing box with the rubber strip. It kept almost all of the water out. We probably had no more than a cup of water from each box come into the boat.
Here is the stuffing box after being wrapped and taped in place. Notice that there are no drips.
The starboard stuffing box constantly leaked. When we dug the packing material out of the box, it appeared that only two loops of material were ever used, since we could only find two remnants of any material. Here is what Jim dug out of the box. Usually, you can measure the width of the material removed to determine the replacement size. We couldn't do that, because there wasn't enough material left to measure. We started off with the recommended size, but found it too small, which would make installation easier, but lead to premature failure of the stuffing material.
A couple of tools of the trade. The stuffing nut wrench was worth its weight in gold and a fingernail on my left hand. The stuffing box takes at least three circles of packing material, with the seam of each loop off set. We gave up on the razor blade and began to use an Exacto knife with better results. Time to repack the starboard box - 25 minutes from beginning to end.
The port stuffing box was a bonus. It never occurred to me that Jim would be willing to do both. It was also much more difficult to get to. We had to take the generator cover off and it was still a tight fit.
Here is the stuffing material that came out of the port stuffing box. The same number of hours is on each engine and, presumably, each stuffing box. You can see why the starboard box leaked and the port box didn't. Patsy had to make an emergency run to the store to get additional stuffing material because we used about 20 of 24 inches in the first batch. We used Teflon, rather than flax in the port stuffing box. Jim did the port stuffing box in about 15 minutes, primarily because we didn't have to guess at the size of the stuffing material.
Here is Jim as he emerges from the repacking exercise. No sweat, eh, Jim?? Note the bottom side of the sofa behind Jim.
First of all, my heartfelt thanks to Jim for his work on my behalf. Jim's creativity and careful work is a joy to watch. Second of all, if you have questions about how or why we did the stuffing boxes the way we did, don't hesitate to post a question to Boat Talk and we'll try to answer them.