Dripless Seal Replacement on Pilot 30

[Sunspot Baby]

I am the proud new owner of a 1999 single engine Pilot 30. The dripless seal isn't. That is, it drips a little. The surveyor said not critical but should fix soon.

It looks like Mainship installed the engine and shaft, then bolted in the fuel tank over it, then glued the deck on. This seal is REALLY hard to reach.

Someone must have tackled this problem before and might give me some tips on how they accomplished it. It would take a mechanic with gorilla arms standing on their head in the bilge to reach it.

Any ideas would be helpful.

George

[ranger58sb]

There's a Mainship owners group on Yahoo...

-Chris

[Tia Bu]

Boy, I hate it for you. These things are always in the most miserably inaccessible of locations, it seems.

I replaced one a couple of years ago. I budgeted a couple of hours' time for it as a do-it-yourself job the morning before I hoped to launch the boat. The experienced yard manager swallowed hard and readjusted his launch schedule after I told him this.

It took me about 16 hours of hard, contorted, sweaty, miserable work to back the end of the propeller shaft out of the coupling so I could get the old seal off. The yard manager said they usually had mechanics put in no more than two hours trying to do this. If it didn't come out quickly and easily (and it usually didn't), they would then take a Sawzall, cut the shaft, pull the whole thing out, and have a new shaft made. This was cheaper than continuing to fight it at mechanics' labor rates.

After I got mine apart, I paid the yard mechanic two hours' labor to put the new seal in and reseat the shaft. This was no piece of cake either.

But if that seal blows, you've got a real problem on your hands. I guess you'd better go on and fix it. The seal itself is not expensive. The labor charges are a real danger, though, unless you are dealing with an honest, sensible yard.

Good luck!

[Sunspot Baby]

Thanks Chris. I posted the same message there as well as the Trawler Forum. As many MS 30's that were built, I can't imagine that someone, somewhere hasn't found a trick to handle this so I remain hopeful.

George

[Sunspot Baby]

Tia:

Thanks for all the encouraging words.

I may need to take this to a better equipped yard to do the work and not try to tackle it myself.

George