Dripless shaft cooling system?
 

The professional who installed the dripless shaft seal on my Hunter 33
told me to attach the tube coming off the seal to a spot where it opened
above the water line, but on a recent boating program on TV they said
you are supposed to T that into the exhaust line of the cooling system.

On the dripless web site they say that cooling system is only for high
speed boats. Should I leave it as is or T it in?

--
Stephen

-------

For any proposition there is always some sufficiently narrow
interpretation of its terms, such that it turns out true, and
some sufficiently wide interpretation such that it turns out
false...concept stretching will refute *any* statement, and will
leave no true statement whatsoever.
-- Imre Lakatos

Wow! The "professional" didn't know what he/she was talking about.
The hose is for cooling water to keep the seal cool. This is essential on
high speed shaft (powerboats). But another "professional" I worked
with down at Rybovich-Spencer in FL said that even on sailboats it
is a good idea to provide water to the seal. It provides a positiver flow
out the stern tube so that sediment will be flushed out. Also, turns out
that PSS (the seal I have) has discontinued the seals without the cooling
feed. They recommend that all applications provide cooling water no
matter what the speed.

Doug

"Stephen Trapani" wrote in message
...
The professional who installed the dripless shaft seal on my Hunter 33
told me to attach the tube coming off the seal to a spot where it opened
above the water line, but on a recent boating program on TV they said you
are supposed to T that into the exhaust line of the cooling system.

On the dripless web site they say that cooling system is only for high
speed boats. Should I leave it as is or T it in?

--
Stephen

-------

For any proposition there is always some sufficiently narrow
interpretation of its terms, such that it turns out true, and
some sufficiently wide interpretation such that it turns out
false...concept stretching will refute *any* statement, and will
leave no true statement whatsoever.
-- Imre Lakatos

I think that the flush issue is the most important. I have seen several
boats partly sink because of something as simple as a blade of sea
grass being caught in there. (on the older ones with no flush - don't
be to worried)

Stephen Trapani wrote in
:

On the dripless web site they say that cooling system is only for high
speed boats. Should I leave it as is or T it in?


Let me tell you about our "Lionheart" trip to Florida. Cap'n decided to
change out the old, reliable, grease injector bearing the greenies worry
will just trash the ocean. (More grease comes out of a bassboat trailer's
wheels every time he launches.) So, being a good, legal guy, he told the
yard to change it out to a dripless when it was in the yard just before the
Florida Floozy Cruise to Key West.

The yard, an old reliable yard used for years, installed a speed boat
bearing with a water injection line, instead of the displacement boat
without the line...probably because the former was in stock...same price.
They used a plastic water line to hook the injection spigot to the seawater
pressure from the Perkins 4-108. No "burping" the bearing to get the air
out....just crank it. Big deal, right?

NOT!

Cap'n and some friends head out to sea stopping in a couple of ports in
Florida. Friends are not sailors, so he goes easy on the trip down, lots
of ICW if it's a bit rocky at sea. The boat remained, mostly, upright.

They'd been heeled over a ways just before getting to Key West. When they
got to Key West, the Perkins didn't want to crank, but after several
retries, it took off and seemed fine. With the distraction of so many
people, it went unserviced. (Worrywart Larry wasn't aboard...yet).

The group enjoyed Key West and ended up back at West Palm Beach. At that
time, most of them left the boat, leaving the Cap'n short handed for the
trip to Daytona Beach, where the dock rats from E-dock were to go aboard to
run her in the Gulf Streamer Race between Daytona Beach and Charleston.
Cap'n called me to see if I could break away and come sail her up the FL
coast. Silly boy, took me 50 milliseconds to decide...(c;

She cranked right up and we motored N up the ICW and put to sea at the next
channel because the winds had picked up really nice and he and I were
anxious to get her under sail where she belongs. We put to sea as the sun
lowered in the West for a night run by Cape Canaveral.

Fresh winds, great angle, for a heavy cruiser great speed. She was heeled
over for hours to port as we zoomed along towards Ponce De Leon Inlet, the
mosquito capital of the world. Arriving ahead of our loose schedule, we
did a little sightseeing up the coast......then it was time to put the toys
up and crank the Perkins to go inland.....and it happened.....

The Perkins 4-108 wouldn't turn over. We switch in more batteries, still
no turnover. There was so much current going to the starter the cable was
jumping from the intense magnetic field. No go....She was LOCKED. We
called for a Towboat/US tow. It took him a while to get down to the inlet.

When the towboat got there, a twin-outboard open towboat with good sized
tow post, he said he could not come out through the inlet to get us. We'd
have to sail Lionheart up the channel, against the tide just ripping out to
sea. The wind had turned South, so we unfurled the 170 genoa and seemed to
have plenty of power we could lose quickly at the proper moment. Past that
rockpile and lighthouse, we were making about 2 knots...over ground. We'd
finally got in past the waves and the tow operator took her in tow the 2.5
hours to Daytona. Changing to a hip tow, he put us alongside the quay at
Daytona Marina and boatyard. It was a long day....but they immediately
sent for a mechanic to check out the engine. Cutter Doc of Daytona Beach,
God Bless him, showed up about 5PM when he should have been going home to
his family. He took out the injectors.

Three of four cylinders were FULL OF SEAWATER! We turned her over to blow
all that out best we could and pickled the top of the engine with a
concoction he uses to save them. I still hate the smell of Marvel Mystery
Oil to this day! The boat reeked of it. When the water finally stopped
spraying out the holes, he pumped out the crankcase. It looked exactly
like the beach in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez oil spill....tar balls. It
took about 8 oil changes with cranking in between to stir it around before
just OIL came out when pumped. One injector was cracked, two mounts were
cracked. They all went back to the shop for testing/replacement.

When Cutter Doc came back, the engine had REFILLED WITH SEAWATER! Taking
the exhaust hose off the outlet of the waterbox, water ran out of the
waterbox, not back down from the underwater fitting through the big loop.
He was scratching his head as he re-pickled the whole engine again. He and
my captain were going to put Lionheart into the drydock and move the
exhaust outlet up above the waterline. As I sat steeped in the stink of
oil that night, my captain having left for Atlanta to go back to work, I
sat there and watched the water now leaking slowly out of the opened
waterbox. Where did it come from??? Why didn't this happen before??

I shut down the cooling intake valve....no change...trickle-
trickle....Nothing else was hooked to the water system or exhaust but the
hot water heater. No, pinching off those tubes had no effect....trickle-
trickle....Then I pinched off that damned water injection line from the new
dripless bearing.....

Dripless my ass! The water flow stopped. I pinched it off with a Vise
Grip and disconnected it from the engine. Water was backing up from the
bearing and flooded our engine.....damn! Well, the waterline isn't
necessary so we could just cap it off and forget it. We could keep it and
extend it high enough to install a siphon break above the waterline. Why
not install a VALVE to shut the damned thing off and leave it off unless we
had just come out of the yard, opening it to blow the bubble out on the
first engine start, then closing it again for good. The bearing in
Lionheart is AWFUL hard to get to unless you weigh 60 pounds and are 3'
tall. So, that afternoon, I headed off to Waste Marine in search of a
suitable plastic valve. I bought one with two hose barbs and installed it
on the side of the battery box, inline with the bearing hose....Problem
solved.

I showed my solution to Cutter Doc the next day and he re-installed the
exhaust hoses to the waterbox, changing the oil yet again to be sure.
After reinstalling the injectors and new hold-down mounts, the old Perkins
tractor engine cranked right up even as he was bleeding the lines as if she
were anxious to get back underway. I ran it 2 hours, changed the oil, ran
it two more hours, changed the oil and ran it until midnight. Perkins
makes a helluva great engine to take all this abuse. It cranks and runs as
if nothing ever happened.

If you get the water injection model, PUT IN A VALVE TO KEEP IT FROM
BACKING UP INTO THE ENGINE....and EVERY time any mechanic is in the engine
room...MAKE SURE THE IDIOT DOESN'T TURN THE VALVE BACK TO OPEN....ours did.

Water injection is NOT necessary on sailboats and trawlers.....

--
Larry

With Teflon GFO packing available (for a standard stuffing box) , why
in the world would anyone ever want a dripless shaft seal? You dont
need to let a stuffing box with GFO 'drip' to keep the box cool. Any
old fashioned stuffing box is KISS simple, hardly ever fails (as much
as a PSS), doesnt need to 'drip' if you use a teflon packing, and the
teflon packing lasts FOREVER.



In article , Larry
wrote:

Stephen Trapani wrote in
:

On the dripless web site they say that cooling system is only for high
speed boats. Should I leave it as is or T it in?


Let me tell you about our "Lionheart" trip to Florida. Cap'n decided to
change out the old, reliable, grease injector bearing the greenies worry
will just trash the ocean. (More grease comes out of a bassboat trailer's
wheels every time he launches.) So, being a good, legal guy, he told the
yard to change it out to a dripless when it was in the yard just before the
Florida Floozy Cruise to Key West.

The yard, an old reliable yard used for years, installed a speed boat
bearing with a water injection line, instead of the displacement boat
without the line...probably because the former was in stock...same price.
They used a plastic water line to hook the injection spigot to the seawater
pressure from the Perkins 4-108. No "burping" the bearing to get the air
out....just crank it. Big deal, right?

NOT!

Cap'n and some friends head out to sea stopping in a couple of ports in
Florida. Friends are not sailors, so he goes easy on the trip down, lots
of ICW if it's a bit rocky at sea. The boat remained, mostly, upright.

They'd been heeled over a ways just before getting to Key West. When they
got to Key West, the Perkins didn't want to crank, but after several
retries, it took off and seemed fine. With the distraction of so many
people, it went unserviced. (Worrywart Larry wasn't aboard...yet).

The group enjoyed Key West and ended up back at West Palm Beach. At that
time, most of them left the boat, leaving the Cap'n short handed for the
trip to Daytona Beach, where the dock rats from E-dock were to go aboard to
run her in the Gulf Streamer Race between Daytona Beach and Charleston.
Cap'n called me to see if I could break away and come sail her up the FL
coast. Silly boy, took me 50 milliseconds to decide...(c;

She cranked right up and we motored N up the ICW and put to sea at the next
channel because the winds had picked up really nice and he and I were
anxious to get her under sail where she belongs. We put to sea as the sun
lowered in the West for a night run by Cape Canaveral.

Fresh winds, great angle, for a heavy cruiser great speed. She was heeled
over for hours to port as we zoomed along towards Ponce De Leon Inlet, the
mosquito capital of the world. Arriving ahead of our loose schedule, we
did a little sightseeing up the coast......then it was time to put the toys
up and crank the Perkins to go inland.....and it happened.....

The Perkins 4-108 wouldn't turn over. We switch in more batteries, still
no turnover. There was so much current going to the starter the cable was
jumping from the intense magnetic field. No go....She was LOCKED. We
called for a Towboat/US tow. It took him a while to get down to the inlet.

When the towboat got there, a twin-outboard open towboat with good sized
tow post, he said he could not come out through the inlet to get us. We'd
have to sail Lionheart up the channel, against the tide just ripping out to
sea. The wind had turned South, so we unfurled the 170 genoa and seemed to
have plenty of power we could lose quickly at the proper moment. Past that
rockpile and lighthouse, we were making about 2 knots...over ground. We'd
finally got in past the waves and the tow operator took her in tow the 2.5
hours to Daytona. Changing to a hip tow, he put us alongside the quay at
Daytona Marina and boatyard. It was a long day....but they immediately
sent for a mechanic to check out the engine. Cutter Doc of Daytona Beach,
God Bless him, showed up about 5PM when he should have been going home to
his family. He took out the injectors.

Three of four cylinders were FULL OF SEAWATER! We turned her over to blow
all that out best we could and pickled the top of the engine with a
concoction he uses to save them. I still hate the smell of Marvel Mystery
Oil to this day! The boat reeked of it. When the water finally stopped
spraying out the holes, he pumped out the crankcase. It looked exactly
like the beach in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez oil spill....tar balls. It
took about 8 oil changes with cranking in between to stir it around before
just OIL came out when pumped. One injector was cracked, two mounts were
cracked. They all went back to the shop for testing/replacement.

When Cutter Doc came back, the engine had REFILLED WITH SEAWATER! Taking
the exhaust hose off the outlet of the waterbox, water ran out of the
waterbox, not back down from the underwater fitting through the big loop.
He was scratching his head as he re-pickled the whole engine again. He and
my captain were going to put Lionheart into the drydock and move the
exhaust outlet up above the waterline. As I sat steeped in the stink of
oil that night, my captain having left for Atlanta to go back to work, I
sat there and watched the water now leaking slowly out of the opened
waterbox. Where did it come from??? Why didn't this happen before??

I shut down the cooling intake valve....no change...trickle-
trickle....Nothing else was hooked to the water system or exhaust but the
hot water heater. No, pinching off those tubes had no effect....trickle-
trickle....Then I pinched off that damned water injection line from the new
dripless bearing.....

Dripless my ass! The water flow stopped. I pinched it off with a Vise
Grip and disconnected it from the engine. Water was backing up from the
bearing and flooded our engine.....damn! Well, the waterline isn't
necessary so we could just cap it off and forget it. We could keep it and
extend it high enough to install a siphon break above the waterline. Why
not install a VALVE to shut the damned thing off and leave it off unless we
had just come out of the yard, opening it to blow the bubble out on the
first engine start, then closing it again for good. The bearing in
Lionheart is AWFUL hard to get to unless you weigh 60 pounds and are 3'
tall. So, that afternoon, I headed off to Waste Marine in search of a
suitable plastic valve. I bought one with two hose barbs and installed it
on the side of the battery box, inline with the bearing hose....Problem
solved.

I showed my solution to Cutter Doc the next day and he re-installed the
exhaust hoses to the waterbox, changing the oil yet again to be sure.
After reinstalling the injectors and new hold-down mounts, the old Perkins
tractor engine cranked right up even as he was bleeding the lines as if she
were anxious to get back underway. I ran it 2 hours, changed the oil, ran
it two more hours, changed the oil and ran it until midnight. Perkins
makes a helluva great engine to take all this abuse. It cranks and runs as
if nothing ever happened.

If you get the water injection model, PUT IN A VALVE TO KEEP IT FROM
BACKING UP INTO THE ENGINE....and EVERY time any mechanic is in the engine
room...MAKE SURE THE IDIOT DOESN'T TURN THE VALVE BACK TO OPEN....ours did.

Water injection is NOT necessary on sailboats and trawlers.....

Larry wrote:

Stephen Trapani wrote in
:


On the dripless web site they say that cooling system is only for high
speed boats. Should I leave it as is or T it in?



Let me tell you about our "Lionheart" trip to Florida. Cap'n decided to
change out the old, reliable, grease injector bearing the greenies worry
will just trash the ocean. (More grease comes out of a bassboat trailer's
wheels every time he launches.) So, being a good, legal guy, he told the
yard to change it out to a dripless when it was in the yard just before the
Florida Floozy Cruise to Key West.


[...]

If you get the water injection model, PUT IN A VALVE TO KEEP IT FROM
BACKING UP INTO THE ENGINE....and EVERY time any mechanic is in the engine
room...MAKE SURE THE IDIOT DOESN'T TURN THE VALVE BACK TO OPEN....ours did.

Water injection is NOT necessary on sailboats and trawlers.....

Quite a story! Thanks! I'll put on a valve or something if I do hook it up.

But what's the deal? What kind of a system is it that they would design
it that way? Why isn't this system crapping out engines all over the
country?



--
Stephen

-------

For any proposition there is always some sufficiently narrow
interpretation of its terms, such that it turns out true, and
some sufficiently wide interpretation such that it turns out
false...concept stretching will refute *any* statement, and will
leave no true statement whatsoever.
-- Imre Lakatos

Rich Hampel wrote in
:

With Teflon GFO packing available (for a standard stuffing box) , why
in the world would anyone ever want a dripless shaft seal? You dont
need to let a stuffing box with GFO 'drip' to keep the box cool. Any
old fashioned stuffing box is KISS simple, hardly ever fails (as much
as a PSS), doesnt need to 'drip' if you use a teflon packing, and the
teflon packing lasts FOREVER.


I can't figure out why the greased bearing is "illegal", either. We only
turned the grease gun a turn when there was a major trip happening. I
doubt, in the chemical soup of any harbor or ICW or ocean, the fish
noticed. How stupid blaming these little boats in the shadow of oil
tankers and containerships dumping huge loads of all kinds of crap
overboard.

--
Larry

Stephen Trapani wrote in
:

But what's the deal? What kind of a system is it that they would design
it that way? Why isn't this system crapping out engines all over the
country?


Because our yard DIDN'T put a loop and anti-siphon break in that line.
There's no place to conveniently put it in our engine room above the
dripless. I don't know what they were thinking about after all those years
of installing this stuff. You can bet they heard all about it when my
captain got back here...(c;

--
Larry

WaIIy wrote:
I installed two PSS seals on my boat (twin 5.7's) and the fitting I put
on the manifold is quite a bit above the waterline.

I can't see, in my case, how a backflow could possibly occur.

Easily. As the manifold cools, it pulls a vacuum on the water supply to
the seals. This is one case where water will readily flow up hill (and a
little metaphysical help from Murphy's Law, no doubt).

Our engine cooling water outlet, on the injection elbow, is slightly
above the waterline. It was not connected to gland cooling water at all,
even though the piping for this connection was installed and left
hanging (maybe disconnected by the first owner). I put in a vacuum
breaker and it works 100% A-OK. The packing gland gets warms now,
whereas before it would sometimes get pretty hot.

Fair Skies
Doug King

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 08:59:10 -0400, Larry wrote:

Stephen Trapani wrote in
:

But what's the deal? What kind of a system is it that they would design
it that way? Why isn't this system crapping out engines all over the
country?


Because our yard DIDN'T put a loop and anti-siphon break in that line.
There's no place to conveniently put it in our engine room above the
dripless. I don't know what they were thinking about after all those years
of installing this stuff. You can bet they heard all about it when my
captain got back here...(c;

When my Onan water-lift muffler failed I had a very similar problem
that (due to my ignorance about the physics of the thing) caused me to
lose a season replacing an Atomic 4 I assumed had a cracked block
(mechanic agreed, too!).

When I found water-fouled oil in the "new" (freshly rebuilt) Atomic 4,
I "clewed in". Finally.

Applying the sabre saw and a smaller friend in the locker, we cut out
the Onan, which looked like a stock pot and sounded like it was full
of rusty playing cards, out and put in a Vetus water lock in at about
one-third the size. I put in all-new exhaust hose and put a higher
loop in the exhaust hose just before it left the boat in the transom.

I have a Vetus siphon break device I could install as the final piece
of the puzzle, but as the manifold exhaust is *exactly* at the
waterline, and I am fastidious about turning off the raw water
intakes, I am not sure this is necessary, as getting the recommended
16 inches of vertical loop might mean the thing might be better used
in the head (it's appropriate for both applications).

Now I have a perfectly fine rebuilt A4 in my garage with 40 hours on
it. Crazy, eh?

R.