Re-Packing A Stuffing Box - A New Photo DIY Article

[Maine Sail]

Hi All,

I have seen this question, "how do I re-pack my stuffing box" posed literally hundreds of times, on different forums, and still no-one had a good photo based article on how to change the flax packing in an old school stuffing box. Sunday afternoon it was ridiculously rainy, hahvin' a Noh' Eastaah, and too miserable to go to the boat yard so I dug out my old stuffing box, cleaned it up and created a photo based how-to article on re-packing a stuffing box. I hope this helps someone and when this question comes up again perhaps we can just copy and paste a link !

If I missed or forgot any important points please let me know and I'll make the changes. As usual I'm not claiming these are the be all end all instructions just the only ones I know of that are in-depth and picture based.

There are two pages to this article so be sure and click page two when you get to the end of page one!

Here's the link: http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/stuffing_box

P.S. Boat purchase update. We did not make the offer on the Ericson 32-200 and we are currently in negotiations on a Canadian Sailcraft 36. We really like the Ericson line but my wife & I fell in love with the CS-36. If the deal does not go through we could still wind up buying an Ericson! Either way I like you guys as a community and I do have extensive knowledge of the Universal M-25 engines and such so I'll keep in touch with this board board. Another great place for M-25 info are the Catalina 36 and Catalina 34 forums as both of those boats used the M-25...

-Maine Sail

 

[Loren Beach]

Nice!

Nice web link! Thanks.
I hereby nominate you as an "honorary Ericson owner"....

Sidebar -- another web site with an extensive project section and great closeup photos is Wally's C&C restoration project at:
http://www.wbryant.com/
Once there, click on the What's New sign.

Thanks again for sharing.

Loren

 

[Jeff Asbury]

This is great!

This is great. Thank you, I printed these pages and put it in my home made Ericson Manual I created from other files from the specs and docs section on this site.

It would be great if Sean could put these up in the EYo Specs and Docs section.

Great Job!

 

[treilley]

Maine, if that is the boat in Kittery then that is a very nice boat. I know photos can be deceiving but you could eat dinner off of the engine or even the pan. Nice topsides too. I know you said it was in very good condition. How goes the sale of your boat? Any survey's yet?

BTW, is that really your hand in the photo?

 

[Geoff Johnson]

I have to beg to differ. I've been using Syntef for at least 5 years with great success, i.e. a truly dripless stuffing box. I have not experienced any of the caking problems described by the author or the overheating, which I surmise is the cause of the caking. In fact the packing has polished my shaft to a mirror finish. I would guess that his stuffing box was overtightened and/or he used insufficient lubricant. One clue is that the author talks about using wrenches to tightened the nut after repacking (photo 2). Mine is hand tightened except for the last degree of rotation necessary to lock the locking nut.

 

[Maine Sail]

Geoff..

When I discuss tightening with wrenches it's ONLY in reference to locking the two nuts against each other. I never use a wrench to adjust a stuffing box always by hand. Some stuffing boxes have a larger bore where the shaft goes through the male portion and as such may not clog as easily but could given time. Glad you had good luck with yours because since writing my article I have about a dozen emails from others who have experienced the same issues I had only most never figured out why...

 

[Geoff Johnson]

It may be because I replace the aft ring of packing with teflon packing every year or so after putting in more lubricant. I am not sure but I think my stuffing box has a much closer fit around the shaft than the one shown in your photo (first photo on second page). Mine is like the gap at the top, not the large gap at the bottom.