Best Shaft Seal?

[Malish]

I joined the Rival Owners Association a few weeks ago but I’ve been less than impressed with the contents, I’m sure it’s just me not using it properly but I can’t find any of the drawing and technical stuff, I have found a spreadsheet referencing various projects and improvements Rival owners have made which would be useful but there doesn’t seem to be a way of accessing the actual articles mentioned in the spreadsheet? I also created a Facebook account in order to join the Rival Owners Facebook group but can’t navigate this either for any useful technical stuff - just some interesting general stuff. What am I doing wrong? I’d love to read an account of some Rival 32 owner fitting a shaft seal for example - there must be plenty who have done so.

if you go into the Technical section on the ROA site then all the plans etc are to be found in the turquoise box on the right hand side of the page.
If you go to the News section, one of the options is 'Rival Roundups' which takes you to a location where you can download all those documents as .PDFs
In the Forum Section - Technical - you just click on the item to see the discussion.

For all the above you need to be logged in, that might be the overarching difficulty ?

 

[vyv_cox]

How do you do that? Pull it back and give it a slosh, or run water through it somehow?

Both. Run water down the vent tube and separate the faces. I put a jug full of water down the tube and the same over the separated faces.

 

[Tranona]

I have a Victorian boat, with a Victorian gland, and the only 'regular attention' during 127 years has been turning the handle on the greaser.

The Rival is by contrast a modern GRP boat with an engine on flexible mounts and a Victorian stuffing box on flexible hose. An attempt to adapt Victorian technology to mid 20th century usage and as you can see from other comments it is a flawed concept. Fortunately shaft sealing technology has moved on and superior products are available that more closely suit the application.

 

[Wandering Star]

Thank you Redwing Rival for this, I’ve now managed to access stuff I was unaware existed on the website (and yes, I was logged in) so very pleased!

A couple of specific questions for you, what shaft seal did you choose for your R34 and was it was it tricky to fit? My boats a R32 and a project in progress, I’d like to fit some type of shaft seal whilst she’s ashore. I’ve had a PSS seal on another boat and was very happy with it but understand the area where it would sit it is too tight on the R32 to use the PSS seal, I’ve also read (possibly here) the propshaft doesn’t retract far enough to enable the PSS seal to squeeze into the available gap between the gearbox and shaft connection - do you have any comment? I’d be very grateful for any helpful advice.

 

[Malish]

Thank you Redwing Rival for this, I’ve now managed to access stuff I was unaware existed on the website (and yes, I was logged in) so very pleased!

A couple of specific questions for you, what shaft seal did you choose for your R34 and was it was it tricky to fit? My boats a R32 and a project in progress, I’d like to fit some type of shaft seal whilst she’s ashore. I’ve had a PSS seal on another boat and was very happy with it but understand the area where it would sit it is too tight on the R32 to use the PSS seal, I’ve also read (possibly here) the propshaft doesn’t retract far enough to enable the PSS seal to squeeze into the available gap between the gearbox and shaft connection - do you have any comment? I’d be very grateful for any helpful advice.

The R34 had a Halyard oil seal fitted, a nice if slightly complicated design, but now with no sapres availabilty (for the rubber enclosure, unless someone know different). I swapped t out for a Radice, I had to put a sleeve on the stern tube to get the correct ID for the Radice, for which I used the sleeve from a PSS seal (which you can buy from Aquafax who are the UK agents for PSS) - the PSS bellows come in a limited number of sizes and the sleeve (which they call a cuff) is used to adjust the final fitted diameter..a smear of sikaflex held the sleeve in place..... don't ask me what the size was. Not had a problem since, over 10 years, I replaced the Radice at 5 years as per their instructions but it was fine. Plenty of relevant pics on Vyv's web site as already mentioned.

 

[Moodysailor]

When we got our boat it had a face seal type. I thought I would change it as I had also heard bad things about them. What I know now is it depends a lot on the boat. The face seal types don't work well with any longitudinal movement of the prop shaft. When we removed our shaft seal and the thrust block we found that the shaft has a machined groove all around the shaft. This locates on a matching ridge on a split bush inside the bearing housing. With this set up, it is impossible to get any longitudinal movement of the shaft. The face seal stays perfectly aligned on its faces. As a result it doesn't leak. It can be a pain to align but once set seems to work well.
I have seen the Volvo type with a lip seal wear the stainless shaft so these can have issues as well.
I think if I was starting again I would go for the lip seal type on balance. It is far simpler

Agreed. Actually, I think a lot of the problem is that shaft driven pleasure boats have an inherent design flaw - that is that the engine mounting arrangement is also the thrust bearing for the driveline. In a commerical or heavy-duty setup, a thrust bearing (aquadrive for smaller boats) is used which isolates the engine mountings from the forward or reverse thrust.

With a conventional setup, the shaft has 6 axis freedom of movement, as this is designed into the engine mounts. A PSS/face type seal will always struggle with this amount of deflection.

 

[Tim Good]

My PSS is at least 10 years old and has been remarkably trouble free since I began rinsing it in fresh water at haul-out.

I got a PSS type seal after reading Vyvs experiences. Now on 6 years and fine. When we lay up we back off the bellows and rinse with fresh water and leave a little gap. Takes 5 mins to put back on.

Doesn’t drip and maintenance free. Mine is actually a Michigan seal but the concept is the same.