Mayday Mayday Mayday

[spiritbaer]

Hello,I am not familiar with your area, do you have any old docks or tidal grids available?So that you can do this work at your leisure. Looking at those pictures and the age of the vessel, there is going to be more nasty surprises coming your way. This is how I would approach this job, tie up to pilings, let the tide go out, remove prop and shaft,plug the tube,inspect throughly around the prop aperture and where it exits in the interior for any moisture and delamanation, repair as necessary, clean up and inspect shaft, reinstall everything. While your at it inspect all your rudder attachment.
Reading your other postings it would appear like you are pretty well equipped to handle this work without the expensive attraction and assistance of a marina. Doing this in the water, it can be done, but consider this that the old boat demons are more than ready to catch you with your pants down Best of luck Fred

[zeehag]

please pray gainst boat demons!!!! i wont take anyones money, and i will buy rhummmmmmmmmmm and feed and take sailing... legs of my trip are available wherever i am going....we can work out something......
as for basin bum-- let me join that club-- do ye has a burgee yet????
i will take pix when i get back from bank--i was told yesterday that i didnt spend my entire food allowance as yet so i can still go get some lamp oil and foods and hunker down until payday--and dream up stuff to fix and finish until my next influx of cash......figgered i would strip my ericson somewhat and offer her up for a lot less......(i covet my own stove and propane system..LOL).
OUR FASCISTS DONT SUCCUMB WELL TO EYELASH BATTING--- THEY LIKE THEIR EXTRA INCOME...oops...LOL

[SaltyMonkey]

"Doing this in the water, it can be done, but consider this that the old boat demons are more than ready to catch you with your pants down"

zeezee...he is right. My vote is for a sling pull out. All the plans presented are not elegantly simple - much too complicated. You need simple plans to mitigate any possible failures which tend to pile up on top of each other quickly.

[speakeasy]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

"Doing this in the water, it can be done, but consider this that the old boat demons are more than ready to catch you with your pants down"

zeezee...he is right. My vote is for a sling pull out. All the plans presented are not elegantly simple - much too complicated. You need simple plans to mitigate any possible failures which tend to pile up on top of each other quickly.

Second that thought.

[kenny chaos]

Originally Posted by zeehag

please pray gainst boat demons!!!! i wont take anyones money, L

I said a short prayer (first one in 30 years) for you against the demons and viola, bread wants to fall from the heavens and you say "NO?"
Reconsider. It's the only way some people can help and it's selfish not to let them. And besides, I'd been saving up that prayer for a long time. Sure would be a shame to waste it.
Love & Luck-
Kenny

[Charlie]

The more I think about it the only way I can see that the bearing could be sealed would be for it to have been glassed in. I don't know how you would get that seal back. Can be done in the water but not for the faint of heart. In an emergency I would try it but otherwise not sure how to do it.

[Bergovoy]

this is not a matter of charity... it is as stated by others, a way for folks to help who otherwise cant...

I am not offering to pay 100% or anywhere near it... but $10-20 from a handfull of folks will get you up in the air and dry...

Im not sure if there is a AAA for boats or not,but if there is, can someone tell me what or how much it costs??? I am all about the evil insurance money grab... i love insurance...i cant imagine living without it...

so, I would stronglysuggest getting a paypal account and let me and others if they choose help in anyway they can...

bb

[boatman61]

Sounds reasonable to me if there looks like being a problem...
If it was the uk theres slips/docks all over where you can bottom out and tie up at high water, dry out and work... plug up, take a break and start again as the water goes back down... but out your way in SD... aint gorra clue...
Maybe someone if looks at it in situ not pictoral then comes up with a plan... or a PayPal account..... .... you've time to kill till March...

[DeepFrz]

I just checked the tide chart for San Diego and there isn't enough range to dry out.

Zee, even though I can't contribute it wouldn't hurt to get a pay pal account and let people contribute if they like.

[Charlie]

I may have a chance to look at it this weekend depending on how my business goes. I am seeing a problem with doing it in the water because I think that the flange/packing gland is glassed to the tube ( I think they are called shaft logs) that the propeller shaft goes thru. I don't see any other way for it to be sealed. If that is the caseit is more then a matter of swapping out parts. It would require grinding the old one off and then glassing a new one in. I don't have much/any experience with glass.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

I just checked the tide chart for San Diego and there isn't enough range to dry out.

Zee, even though I can't contribute it wouldn't hurt to get a pay pal account and let people contribute if they like.

Well thats good if she can go somewhere and touch bottom.... bow on...
Zee... I don't suppose you've got 'legs' for her by any chance... I know they're rare things over your way..

[beetle]

Originally Posted by Charlie

I am seeing a problem with doing it in the water because I think that the flange/packing gland is glassed to the tube ( I think they are called shaft logs) that the propeller shaft goes thru. I don't see any other way for it to be sealed. If that is the caseit is more then a matter of swapping out parts. It would require grinding the old one off and then glassing a new one in. I don't have much/any experience with glass.

hi Charlie -

From what I can determine, Zeehag isn't quite clear on the location of the stuffing box - the stuffing box is the bronze fitting thru-bolted to the athwartships plywood bulkhead. Based on these pictures here
http://witchofendor.shutterfly.com/
and comments between zeehag and witchofendor here
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...eak-48213.html
what we're looking at in zeehag's photo is a bronze stuffing box on one side of the plywood, and a metal tube on the other size, with the prop shaft rotating inside the metal tube.

On Zeehag's boat the metal tube has corroded, and my guess is the tube should be replaced. How the tube forms a seal to the stuffing box through the plywood is unknown. It looks like the stuffing box is simply sealed to the plywood with an adhesive/sealant, no fiberglass.

Given the corrosion on zeehag's prop shaft, it could take a fair bit of cleaning to get the shaft to move fore and aft; what is unknown is the condition of the shaft inside the steel tube, and if that's corroded as well then it will be difficult to slide the shaft very far in either direction.

I vote against trying to do this in the water for all the reasons previously stated.

- rob/beetle

[Tia Bu]

Zeehag:

I had a similar (but not exactly the same) problem about 4 months ago. My shaft seal suddenly started leaking faster and faster. Very experienced buddies from the marina looked at the leaking shaft seal. They kindly placed emergency bilge pumps in the boat and checked on it several times a day until I could get down to it.

I fully expected I would have to do an emergency haulout. At least I had the bucks on hand to do it.

But when I got down to the boat, I stuck my head in the bilge, spent a couple of hours working gently through the problem, got on the phone with the seal manufacturer (mine was a dripless seal- different animal), and ended up fixing the thing with $10 worth of flat rubber stock from the hardware store.

All the while, everyone was afraid the boat might sink.

So-- don't panic. Patiently work the problem. You may well find an inexpensive solution.

By the way, at one point I actually had to take the seal completely off. So the only thing between the inside of the boat and the ocean was the cutlass bearing and the shaft. I thought this was going to be like a geyser. But in fact, it was just like a faucet running half open, and the electric bilge pump handled it without a problem until I got the seal fixed and back on a few minutes later.

Good luck.

[zeehag]

you guys ar sooocoool-- here is the situation-- the packing gland is toast. dark pink toast. there is a leaky dark pink flange on a beam-- bulkhead, is bolted to it. on the other side there is a shaft log/tube holding the shaft. inside the beam is the seal?-- i was advised this may be a bearing thing -- flange=bearing?
i got more pix today, inclusive of the back side of the beam....

is entire thing
backside of nbeam--a-[baft the stuffing box/flange/wtf--the whitish thing is shaft log--goes into the beam


-loong view from tranny to packing gland
anothe rview-prolly repeated - of the top of the dark pink flange/bearing?wtf part of the system.

this is what i am dealing with. this boat was bought in 2004 by a boat virgin who bought it from a reallly notoriously horrible restorer. he (dmitri, the restorer) buys bad boats and fixes them to float and do minimal function. the po was advised the cutlass bearing was bad, is not bad per testing. THIS is bad, and has been so for ages-- since before scotty (PO) bought boat. is part of reason i go there for 10k
my FORMER sail buddy was going to help me place dripless packing gland on this-- i dont know if i want that--i can go for old fashioned kind but i dont know what kind works best on this set up. i have a request in to the leaky teaky yacht club folks to see what they say, also--as this is a formosa----i saw one like this in the ages they had-- but i couldnt find it again when i looked-- so i called them out....and copies of the pix go to a parts house so i can get the correct pieces. yipes. i thought i knew this stuff... but formosas are a lil different, kinda like me..LOL.....(no, i am not a leaky teaky..LOL i am different..)
oh yes, scotty abandoned thiis boat after he blew the 4-107 to chritmas in july. so i placed another engine--4-108, and i am ready to finish this mayhem and sail her.he re-rigged her 5 yrs ago.
has been 4 yrs i watched her go and couldnt do anything until i bought her....he sailed her from sf before he let her sit. before he bought her i learned she sat on the breakwall in sta barbara for a week..... musta been 2002 or sometime thereabouts.....poor old gurl has had a tough life.
after i go ther, i stuffed her with the beeswax ye see and ran liek a scalded doggie to gulf coast and went sailing for a near year--and now i am trying to get out of here-- before mooring co pulls my boats and i have to cruise in 2 ..lol...

[motion30]

I believe the stuffing box is simply threaded on the stern tube sealed with pipe dope Usally these are very fine threads I do not know if a replacment can be found If the tube itself is corroded it can be repaired with fiberglass and epoxy My guess the cutlass on the other end is also threaded onto the stern tube