GFO stuffing box packing - anybody used it?

Malish

Malish

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Im about to embark on the repacking of a trad stuffing box and spotted a product called GFO stuffing box packing on a US site which seems to offer an improvement over normal PTFE/flax options - the claim is 'pack it and forget it'. Anybody got experience of it? is there a UK dealer?
(please, no responses along the line of 'fit a Volvo / PSS / anyother seal')

Thanks
 
As I read that post on the Cruisers Forum, he is saying that the experience of his boatyard is pretty poor. Quote - 'He told me a boat he recently worked on had something like it and could never get it to stop leaking. '

I replaced my packed gland last year with a PSS, mainly because it was becoming a pain to grease every couple of hours. The one I took out had definitely been in position for 12 years and quite possibly for the life of the boat, 1985. Probably a PTFE and graphite one, although I don't know. It never dripped all the time I had it.

Treat them right and they just keep going.
 
In your search did you come across this stuff? I used it for several seasons some years ago on a boat with a traditional stuffing box and found it worked exactly as described. No drips and ran cool and no maintenance. You need one 'ring' of traditional packing to hold the stuff in place when you reassemble the box.
 
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In your search did you come across this stuff? I used it for several seasons some years ago on a boat with a traditional stuffing box and found it worked exactly as described. No drips and ran cool and no maintenance. You need one 'ring' of traditional packing to hold the stuff in place when you reassemble the box.

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Hi I saw a somewhat unfavourable review of it here:
http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/stuffing_box&page=1
presume you had a better experience
 
[ QUOTE ]

Hi I saw a somewhat unfavourable review of it here:
http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/stuffing_box&page=1
presume you had a better experience

[/ QUOTE ]Yes indeed. This was about 10 years back. I'd had my first season with a GK29 I bought. It has a very flat bilge and doesn't conveniently collect water in one place so I got fed up with the drips which are a necessary evil with stuffing boxes. I saw this stuff in West Marine and thought I'd give it a try. I used it over two and a half seasons with total success - which really surprised me. I found it no more difficult to install than the traditional packing and it really did run cool even though there was presumably no water lubrication film between packing and shaft. Eventually the box was changed for a different type of shaft seal when I replaced engine/gearbox/prop shaft. As far as I remember the old box was in good shape when it came out.

Of course this is only one person's experience. I may have been just plain lucky.
 
The stuffing box on my boat (Stuffy the Leaking Box) was POURING water into my bilge. Part of my haul out in November was to repack Stuffy; found four very black smelly flax rings in there. The prop inside the stuffing box is badly damaged from the PO cranking the stuffing box too tight to stop the leaking.

My boat's prop shaft and stuffing box are MUCH larger than the chap's who had bad luck with the Dripless. His pictures look like his flax diameter is a bit large for his stuffing box, and he didn't / couldn't use enough lubricant. I'll bet his shaft did get hot! And for that mess he made with the shredded flax - it would have come out by just pulling out the flax ring behind the Teflon.

I repacked Stuffy with two flax rings, then (three sticks of) the Dripless, then there was still room for two more rings of flax. I used a whole jar of the Syntef in the process - since water can't easily bypass the "clay", which is shredded Teflon, you need to be quite liberal in your use of the Syntef lubricant to keep things cool. When you tighten your stuffing box, do it JUST until your drips stop - that is very important!!!

As badly damaged as my shaft is, I am only getting a few occasional water drips, and the shaft and stuffing box stay as cold as the water.

When I replace the stuffing, I've got two flax rings to drag it out with, and whatever remains shouldn't be too hard to clean out with a popsicle stick.
 
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