Halyard Oil Seal

G

Guest

Guest
I fitted a Halyard Oil Seal 3 years ago. The shaft was carefully polished using emery paper and a lathe; there were no problems during assembly but the seal has always used quite a lot of oil - but does not let water in.
I had to fill the resevoir each of the first 2 years (100 hours motoring) which was a lot considering the maual suggests 1cm/season. Due to very difficult access to the stern tube I just topped up; Halyard did suggest letting them have a look at it but I didn't relish having to take it out.

This year things got worse with a fill every 40 hours, and laterly only 5 hours - so obviously a seal has gone as the oil is collecting in the bilge. (Still no water)
Anyone else had similar problems?
 
G

Guest

Guest
Thanks for that reply. The emery paper was 800/1000 grade and the finish was mirror like. It was really just to ensure that there were no blemishes on the shaft which would damage the seals as the seal was slid down the shaft.
 
G

Guest

Guest
I believe that the Halyard seal uses conventional lip seals, which are mass produced in vaste numbers for the motor industry amongst others. You have numbers of them in your car. When did you last have one fail?
It is much more likely that there is a problem with the surface finish of the shaft, or that the seal was accidentally damaged on installation.
The shaft surface really does need to be finely ground to an almost mirror finish
 

charles_reed

Active member
Joined
29 Jun 2001
Messages
10,413
Location
Home Shropshire 6/12; boat Greece 6/12
Visit site
The suggestions made by some of the contributors are wide of the mark.

1. Halyard stopped making seals, because they couldn't make any money out of them.
2. During that period they produced two modifications of the seal. All relied on oil-cooled rubber seals.
3. The oil-cooling tended to be inadequate and the seals ran extremely hot and in some cases seized and rotation about the shaft took place.

I've had two - both have, after about 600 hours leaked oil and both have seized.
I've found Halyard extremely supportive and co-operative, though understandably they would not admit to having a basic design/concept problem.

They are prepared to produce service exchange units for about half-price though this is likely to cease in 2006.

Any unit which has sufficient frictional resistance to run hot, must also be wasting valuable power.

The alternative, Deep Sea Seal, has even worse reaction from the specialists than the Halyard and I would suggest that the only viable alternative is the American PSS seal
 
Top