Rudder stuffing box
Jeff Griglack
| Jeff Griglack "Jabberwocky" P-365 #269
| "Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent"
| - Walt Kelly
| 'Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this
| world, Elwood, you must be" – she always called me Elwood –
| "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant."
| Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.'
| —James Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd
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George Dubose
Several maintenance points were unattended for 37 years when
Skylark came to me. The bearings in the axle of the steering
pedestal had never seen grease since new and were so clogged with
aluminum oxide that the wheel was frozen. I could go on about the
bronze seacocks...
When I went to change the packing on Skylark's rudder "stuffing box" I had a really hard time to get the cap off to access the packing. I think the dimension of the cap was around 65mm and the open end wrench I bought from Buck-Algonquin that was sold for this purpose bent and was unusable. I had to get a very large adjustable wrench and used a bottle jack to push the wrench handle. I got the cap off and cleaned the threads of the stuffing box and cap.
I think the flax packing or whatever you use should be 3/8", but you should check the size of what packing you remove.
This packing also serves as the upper rudder post bearing and needs to be the correct dimension and installed correctly.
I may have installed packing that is too small as last season, I observed the tip top of the rudder post moving laterally on occasion. Maybe the cap of the stuffing box is too loose and not compressing the packing material enough.
Anyone on this Pearson group have any more input?
George/Skylark
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Dan Pfeiffer
I have the rudder stuffing box from the 10M I salvaged sitting on my desk. I would not be surprised if the 365 had the same stuffing box but it depends on the rudder shaft diameter I suspect. The 10M rudder shaft is 1.5". The ID of the gland nut on the stuffing box is 2". The remaining packing measures about 1/4" which matches what you would expect from those other dimensions.
On the 10M the stuffing box sits above the static waterline. Don't know about the 365. But the general rudder configuration is similar and I suspect it does as well. Seems like good basic design?
So, if you can loosen the gland nut and raise it on the shaft enough to get a ID measurement with a caliper you can take that ID minus the shaft ID and divide by 2 to get the stuffing size.
There is not anything like the wear that happens on a prop shaft stuffing box and I think my salvage 10M had never been touched since 1973. It was in fine serviceable condition. But the boat was on the great lakes and not in a challenging corrosion environment. All of the steering system is worthy of regular maintenance. It is generally robust stuff and easily ignored but shouldn't be (but I do...).
Hope that helps.
Dan Pfeiffer
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john getz
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