Leaking sd60 saildrives

[Kiwikat]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

Where did you get the softer saildrive mounts?

Bill the softer mounts were the old original mounts that we had taken off with the old sail drives. The new SD60 mounts were too hard. Our mechanic had kept our old original mounts so they already had them there to re-use.

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by Kiwikat

Bill the softer mounts were the old original mounts that we had taken off with the old sail drives. The new SD60 mounts were too hard. Our mechanic had kept our old original mounts so they already had them there to re-use.

Thanks, I'll see if I can locate some.

[dmccoy]

I've been having reoccurring issues with saltwater intrusion into my well-used (2,500 hours) SD-60.I too was told that the small grove that the shaft seals have formed on the prop shaft was the likely cause. A new SD-60 prop shaft is around $900. Any suggestions and alternatives to solving this issue less expensively. I'm getting tired of paying to pull the boat out of the water to replace the shaft seals every ~250 hours.

Sidenote: My "sense" is that the water intrusion along the prop shaft can be exacerbated by 1) An out-of-balance prop zinc that did not wear evenly (it happened to me once), 2. My relatively heavy Flexfold prop. 3. Running at RPMs that have higher vibrations as others have mentioned above.

[belizesailor]

Any scoring on the shaft can exacerbate getting a good seal. This can be created by common events like fouling fishing line/nets on the prop shaft...esp w today's hi tech lines.

Yes, shaft prices are ridiculous...the "golden shaft" indeed! There are various products to create a better seal on shafts by sleeving them. Ive not tried them specifically on sail drive shafts, but they work well on water pumps and such.

https://www.skf.com/group/products/i...-speedi-sleeve

Alternatively a good machine shop might be able to resurface the mating surface, this might require using a slightly different seal size.

[Thumbs Up]

Mine are Volvos but similar. I was able to shim the new seals so that they bear outside the groove. I used part of the old seal to make the shim.