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Jon4399 · 15-04-2011, 12:35

Zee,
Resce tape would possibly work if your shaft tube sprang a leak, but i doubt it would work on the several angles of your packing gland. The gland has gussets between the fairly short cylindrical housing and the mounting plate. You presently have the gland smeared with toilet sealing ring wax, which seemed to be working well. If you do attempt to wrap the gland with tape, I urge you to leave the wax in place and simply use tape to hold the wax from being flushed out.

Did the gland leak badly on your trip down to Ensenada? How much of the time did you need to run the engine? When you did, was the current bilge pump sufficient? Have you wired in and plumbed the second 500gph pump we got?

kolya · 11-05-2011, 16:09

My beat up jeep wrangler is practically made out of this stuff, before it was branded as rescue tape I was able to buy it at a local army navy surplus store, there are five year old 'temporary' patches in some vacuum tubing that is still holding strong. I still haven't used it on the boat, but I imagine it would work just as well.

senormechanico · 11-05-2011, 16:57

As Rescue Tape posted, their stuff is different from the Home Depot brand.
I've tried both and the real Rescue Tape is definitely better.

Borealis · 11-05-2011, 17:31

I bought the Rescue Tape from the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Show vendor. I was skeptical but excited after he showed me the o-ring trick. I am a commercial diver and do underwater repairs. The genuine Rescue Tape is expensive and 'magic' if used properly. i have used it on underwater steel pipe repairs that are corroded through. It still fuses underwater but the trick is overlap and stretch. For an application where you cant get an even surface wrap around, try building the item up with a steel putty ( epoxy application, Durabond?) until you have a reasonably smooth continuous surface to wrap, then making sure its very dry and clean, wrap it up with the tape as an extra sealing measure.