Stuffing box not dripping

[balthaus]

I noticed that ther is no water dripping from the stuffing boxes while at dock.
I will order new packing from gfo but was wondering what the "proper drip rate" should be.

[barkleydave]

With GFO you can run with little or no drip at dock.

Mine no drip when idle. Slight few drops per min. turning

[Aquaholic]

A couple questions about stuffing boxes/packing. MiNE was more than dripping at the end of last season (I'm new to inboard boats). I am thinking that I likely should have replaced packing prior to launch yesterday, but I did not instead, I just tightened them up a half turn or so. After launch, I have a steady stream coming in. So, should I try tightening more? How do I know what to tight is? I don't want to damage or groove the shaft as I have read can happen. Also, has anyone changed packing on them while in the water? Is this a terrible idea?

[Busia]

You can tighten them up more if they will go. When you can't tighten them anymore and they still leak too much, then you have to replace the packing. Understand that the packing nut squeezes the packing against a cone or taper inside the seal so it gets smaller or tighter around the shaft. On mine I have 1 inch shafts and the shaft log has very little space for water to leak in. Also this is barely under the water line so there is very little pressure to make it leak. Very easy to change the packing while you are in the water. Take the nut off and you will see how little water comes in. Make sure your bilge pumps work, get new packing and tools, your drink of choice, (you will need more drinks than you think ) and something to kneel on. A scrap piece of shaft or a deep socket the same size as your shaft will make it easy to cut new packing. The hardest part is getting the old packing out and all the bending over. Have any kids to help? How about everybody that wants to go for a ride? Some help would be nice, even to get stuff for you so you don't have to climb in an out so much. Good luck ( I'm at 907-617-7832 if you want to talk ) --Ed

[Aquaholic]

Thank you for that good advice Ed. I guess today was my lucky day ! When I got home from work I got down in there and tightened each of them up a little more and Presto... No water leaking at all

[DougDoty]

I re-snugged mine last week after launching with the same result as Aquaholic. I have never concerned myself with a few drips when running and if this is the case I often notice they silt shut and stop during the week and especially here on the muddy Ohio River I have learned to tell how much they are leaking without looking by manually cycling the bilge pump two mornings in a row and seeing how long it pumps the second day. This morning was 1 second of pumping once it primed. Since it runs about 10 seconds if allowed to run off the float switch then I know that from this it will likely come on once during the week while I'm away. My boat is an 84 and I do not know the history of when they might have been re-packed prior to me buying it in 09 but I did notice that mine are tightened unequally one side to the other in terms of remaining threads showing so I think I will re-do both of mine with the GFO material and I will know the status then. If you run them pretty dry, it is a good idea to shoot the brass packing nuts with an IR gun to know the temperature is within reason when running.