Drive shaft re-packing question

[WBLskier]

I am hoping for a little advice from others on this. I have a 98 Malibu echelon. The seal for the drive shaft was leaking a bit, so I had my mechanic come out and put in new packing rope. He couldn't get all three pieces out (2 of the three he got out). He put two new ones in and sealed it back up (so there are really probably 4 in there now rather than 3). It does not leak at all anymore. I thought it needs to drip a little in order to lubricate it. He said it would be fine and it would drip sufficiently in time. I am wondering if I need to watch to ensure that it will actually drip every few minutes and if not loosen up the brass nut a bit. I'd prefer to do nothing, but I don't want to cause any damage. Any thoughts? Thanks.

[jackski]

New packing compresses a little during initial use, so if he has the "feel" he may have it just right. On the flip side, my packing dosen't leak more than a drop an hour. It's been like that for 3 years. I've taken the nut off to look at the shaft and there's no evidence of heat or scoring just a nice smooth shiny shaft. If the packing is overtightened it'll start showing some heat right at the end of the packing on the inside of the nut usually. If you want to be safe, loosen it off 1/8" turn or so. You will probably have to readjust after a few hours.

[Cam]

Hope I am not hijacking this thread but I have a similar problem.

 

When my club got our three year old 196 a couple of weeks ago we were given a wrap of square profile 5mm (slightly larger than 3/16") gland packing to put in the drive shaft stuffing box, I fitted the packing before we put the boat in the water and then adjusted to a small drip when in the water.

After about an hours running I found that the packing had burned out, we bought a length of 5mm packing and I cut and fitted 4 wraps and put it back in the water, we found that to get a reasonable drip rate the gland would heat up to a point where we could barely touch it but would cool down OK if we had an unacceptable drip rate (only tightening the gland nut by hand)

 

When I fitted the packing the 1st time I noticed that the gland nut was hard to get the threads started as it was at a slight angle to the shaft, I slackened off the stern tube rubber and managed to get the nut on but there wasn't enough play in it to get an even gap all round between the nut and the shafts.

 

My 2 questions are, should I be able to adjust the nut to shaft gap? and if I cant and a slight misalignment is acceptable should I try 6mm (1/4") packing?

 

Thanks

Cam

 

[jackski]

Thicker packing will make the overheating worse. I don't have a SN but maybe someone here with one can tell you if you are supposd to use 3 or 4 wraps in a 196 (depends on stuffing box size). My Malibu uses 3. Less would cause less friction, less heat.

[Cam]

should have added that anything I could find on the internet about packing size recommended 1/4" packing for my year of boat and the 5mm didn't take up the gap as much as I would have expected.