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My two cents on shaft seals and bilge pumps

Bilge pumps
In 2016 I bought a brand new Rule float switch for my 3500 gph bilge pump. The switch was faulty from the manufacturer. It wasn't faulty on install, but because this was my secondary pump and the switch only activated if the 500 gph failed, I didn't notice it until my 500 gph bilge pump was accidently turned off and my high water alarm came on. I learned later, while talking to the Xylem representitive at the January 2017 boat show there was a bad batch of float switches produced in 2016 that failed and that Xylem was aware of this problem and knew the manufacture dates and lot numbers.

Shaft seals
I have a traditional packing shaft seal. What I noticed during my last haul out, when I removed and replaced all my old packing is that repcacking your shaft seal is an excelant way to see if your propeller shaft is properly alligned and to inspect your engine mounts for sagging.

Clean bilge
A dirty bilge can cause problems with pump action. This is not only debris. In my case I noticed in the spring my 500 gph pump was cycling a lot. On inspection I noticed a weird algie/gunky like growth. Something in the water? I don't know. I bought a commercial bilge cleaner used for fish boats to clean my bilge.
 
Had a similar experience with our PSS seal. The clamp on the bellows had become loose, causing it to turn which put a crimp in the cooling line.
We noticed it because we could smell what seemed like plastic burning - you access our shaft log through a hatch in the saloon. We were able to push the seal back to stop the water flow and saved the weekend (just spent the night in a bay on the way back to the marina). We replaced the entire assembly the next week, plus the inner cutlass bearing, the rubber in which had melted from the heat. Fortunately, we were able to do everything in the slip with the bilge pump more than adequate to keep the water out, even when we had the whole assembly off. However, we did have a large AC sump pump on stand-by, just in case. I now check the seal often, including the clamps on the bellows. Otherwise, the seal has been great and we really appreciate the dry bilge.
 
My boat has the PSS dripless shaft seal (single engine). Reading this thread has made me scratch my head and wonder if the "old style stuffing box with modern packing" would be a worthwhile upgrade at my next haul-out, which will happen in the next week or two. But... if I have the PSS system, then switching to an "old style stuffing box" wouldn't be trivial, would it?

And, what's "modern packing"? Simply a packing material that's more effective than the old stuff (which was wax-coated cotton rope, or similar, if I recall).
 
FF said:
" Something to be said in favour of the old stuffing box, it usually fails slowly and warns in advance."


An old style stuffing box with modern packing would be a great upgrade.
Click to expand...


AMEN!!! I love the old stuff that has worked for years. I use Teflon impregnated stuffing in mine.
 
BrianSmith said:
My boat has the PSS dripless shaft seal (single engine). Reading this thread has made me scratch my head and wonder if the "old style stuffing box with modern packing" would be a worthwhile upgrade at my next haul-out, which will happen in the next week or two. But... if I have the PSS system, then switching to an "old style stuffing box" wouldn't be trivial, would it?

And, what's "modern packing"? Simply a packing material that's more effective than the old stuff (which was wax-coated cotton rope, or similar, if I recall).
Click to expand...
Keep an eye on your dripless. I wouldn't change it for the sake of changing it.


Carbon Graphite Gland Packing | Vulcan Seals
 
For me...

Engine room access underway is difficult. I built a data logging temp sensor system based on a raspberry pi mini computer. I run 16 sensors $5 each to various engine room locations. One of this is the shaft seal. All have customisable alarm thresholds. This data is also logged every 10 seconds to a database. Then I can display graphs of operation temps over time on my wheelhouse pc. Great for establish baselines and highlight things going bad before they get serious. Cost me a couple of hundred in parts and many hours of coding but that how I roll.

And I have simple alarm buzzer on my bilge pump that sounds every time the pump runs, which is not very often as the seal don’t drip.
 
I have lost water to my dripless seals twice over the last couple years, once due to a clogged strainer, and once due to a failed pump. I use an electric pump to deliver water to them as my engines have keel coolers, and dry exhaust, and don't have any sea water being pumped by the engines. This is good in many ways, but one downside is there is no hot engines to to warn you that there is a problem with water flow. I have built in temp sensors with alarms on my aluminum shaft tubes right behind the seals. Both times the alarms did not save me. The seals started making a horrendous noise that alerted me to a problem. I shut down immediately and was fortunately able to find and fix the problem quickly both times. When I started back up the seals leaked very slightly for the next few hours of running. They looked perfect, but I assume the carbon blocks got slightly scarred. After a few hours of running they stopped leaking and seem fine.
 
shaft seal failure

Interesting that I should read this thread on this day. I just had a seal failure. My seal overheated and seized on the shaft. It spun and yanked the cooling hose out of the engine. Sudden and startling. The smell was the first thing I noticed, but didn't react quickly enough. When I looked a little smoke was coming out and when I moved the hose fitting steam came out. Water was leaking out of the engine fitting, but none from the hose. After it cooled it started leaking, but with a little fiddlilng and getting the cooling hose jerry-rigged to the engine, the seal leaked quite a bit. It must have spun in the bellows, as the bellows doesn't seem to be damaged. After that it gradually improved and is no almost leak-free. Why didn't I get it fixed right away? It failed in the middle of a lake in Canada with not a travel lift to be found. Question is, what to do now that the cruise is complete. With it stopped it gives a drip every few seconds, but the slightest touch to the cooling hose will start it leaking. Is there a way to tighten it - increase the pre-load?

My suspicion is that it was caused by weeds wrapped on the shaft, preventing water outlet flow through the bearing.
 
I’m not sure I understand exactly what happened. It sounds like it is time to replace the bellows and the cooling hose. The process would involved removing the stainless stator, replacing the seals, and replacing the bellows. It may be unnecessary, but I don’t think I would let it go.
 
I have old stuffing box and gfo packing. Been on same packing for 10 years. No cooling hose needed. It's about as good and simple as can be
 
yarradeen said:
For me...

Engine room access underway is difficult. I built a data logging temp sensor system based on a raspberry pi mini computer. I run 16 sensors $5 each to various engine room locations.
Click to expand...


Can I get a copy of the software for my Raspberry pi?
 
Way, way too many dripless packings fail.

I love my old rope gland packing. Using GFO instead of flax and no drips. Runs cool. Worst possible failure is a drip once in a while. I removed a dripless and installed the gland. Glad I did
 
caltexflanc said:
And obviously you need to solve your bilge pump issues. IMO:

1. Get a quality switch, the Ultra Safety Systems Pumpswitch Senior which includes high water alarm capability.
2. Install back up high capacity high water bilge pump.
Click to expand...

Wow... those aren't cheap! They look great though, I may have to break down and get one for my main bilge.
 
A microswitch activated by a toilet float to set off a buzzer and labeled LED light would do the trick for probably under $20. Think outside of the box cheap.
 
jimisbell said:
Can I get a copy of the software for my Raspberry pi?
Click to expand...

You might want to check out Signal K (https://github.com/SignalK), an open source softwrare project that can (but doesn't have to) interface with the boat's NMEA 2000 and/or NMEA 0183 network, and makes it easy to display data on any device that can run a browser.

Two sub-projects are all about getting data from sensors of all types into a wifi-enabled Arduino-like microcontroller, and then to the Signal K server software running on a Raspberry Pi. SigkSens is the first one I started using (https://github.com/mxtommy/SigkSens), and SensESP (https://github.com/SignalK/SensESP) is a spin-off of that with a very different approach to interfacing with the sensors and the Pi.

Here's a blog post on the Signal K site about these two projects, that includes some pictures: http://signalk.org/2019/08/04/sensesp-sensors.html

I'm in the final stage of writing another blog post that gets into the details of the hardware of the "device" I built that's currently monitoring four different temperatures on my main engine. I'll post a link here as soon as I add all the images.
 
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yarradeen said:
For me...

Engine room access underway is difficult. I built a data logging temp sensor system based on a raspberry pi mini computer. I run 16 sensors $5 each to various engine room locations. One of this is the shaft seal. All have customisable alarm thresholds. This data is also logged every 10 seconds to a database. Then I can display graphs of operation temps over time on my wheelhouse pc. Great for establish baselines and highlight things going bad before they get serious. Cost me a couple of hundred in parts and many hours of coding but that how I roll.

And I have simple alarm buzzer on my bilge pump that sounds every time the pump runs, which is not very often as the seal don’t drip.
Click to expand...

What sensors are you using? I've found some DS18B20 1-Wire sensors that are encased in a stainless steel housing and come with a 3 meter cable. They work pretty well for some things, not so great for others. Also, where on the shaft seal did you put the sensor - right on the front plate, or on the bellows, or somewhere else?
 
jimisbell said:
Wouldnt a $5 bilge pump float do a better job, and made to survive in that environment?
Click to expand...
Maybe but I have changed so many bad ones that I don't trust them. Of course I haven't worked on a boat in nearly 20 years so the reliability could have improved.
 
The water to the shaft seal isn't gravity feed it's from the raw water cooling system. Put a T in the line and run it to a thru hull. Or better yet get a little fitting and run it to your galley sink. If water is coming out there it's also getting to your shaft seal. A lot easier than messing with a ray gun.
 
ben2go said:
I don't know of any boats that have sunk due to a failed dripless seal. I have "heard" a lot of chatter about severe leaks. After some research, it seems that some or most of those leaks were due to neglect. I have researched them enough to know how they work and how to care for them. I would prefer a traditional style packing/stuffing box or gland. That is what I will install on my boat.
Click to expand...

Good choice, and I use GFO packing, its been great. Honestly, nothing to worry about using it. You can neglect it because it needs no attention. I occasionally glance at it and no drips.
 
sdowney717 said:
Good choice, and I use GFO packing, its been great. Honestly, nothing to worry about using it. You can neglect it because it needs no attention. I occasionally glance at it and no drips.
Click to expand...
:thumb:
 
If you have room around the prop shaft, check out these Fast Flow Bilge Pumps...
Regardless of which direction they turn, they pump water out since they are centrifugal pumps. The output volume is amazing and since they run when the prop shaft turns, are not harmed when run dry. Both the housing and the rotor are two parts so you don't need to haul the boat, pull out the shaft to install the pump. Just clamp the rotor on the shaft, clamp the housing around the shaft, and make an arm to hold the pump housing, and plumb the output pipe to the outside.

As long as your engine is running and prop shafts spinning, they can pump out tons of water per hour. No bearings to burn out and not really susceptible to debris in the bilge stopping them up.

https://www.fastflowpump.com/bilge-pump
 
stubones99 said:
If you have room around the prop shaft, check out these Fast Flow Bilge Pumps...
Regardless of which direction they turn, they pump water out since they are centrifugal pumps. The output volume is amazing and since they run when the prop shaft turns, are not harmed when run dry. Both the housing and the rotor are two parts so you don't need to haul the boat, pull out the shaft to install the pump. Just clamp the rotor on the shaft, clamp the housing around the shaft, and make an arm to hold the pump housing, and plumb the output pipe to the outside.

As long as your engine is running and prop shafts spinning, they can pump out tons of water per hour. No bearings to burn out and not really susceptible to debris in the bilge stopping them up.

https://www.fastflowpump.com/bilge-pump
Click to expand...




Here's the original. I'm thinking about making room for one on my boat since I am building it from scratch.



Fast Flow Emergency Bilge Pump
 
That Fast Flow is a really interesting idea, and the company is for real, mostly serving the commercial market with other products there in the Gulf, which may be why I hadn't heard of this. Thanks for posting!
 
caltexflanc said:
That Fast Flow is a really interesting idea, and the company is for real, mostly serving the commercial market with other products there in the Gulf, which may be why I hadn't heard of this. Thanks for posting!
Click to expand...


Yes, its cool. I was thinking about this until I realized that I could get the same output from 3 @ 3700 GPH electric pumps (on EBay for 2/3 rds less money for three of them) and the 12 volt drain would be about 45 amps and my alternator can supply 60 amps.



Now, if the engine fails, I have no electricity....but if the engine fails the shaft driven pump is also "dead in the water"


If ONE of the three electric pumps fails, I still have 2/3 rds of my capacity still remaining and if the shaft driven pump fails have 0% of my capacity remaining.
 
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If your boat has hydraulics, plumb in a valve to add a set of hydraulic hoses to this guy...
https://www.fastflowpump.com/3-aluminum-pump

Get a long set of hydraulic hoses and you might be able to help out a neighboring boat.

Get a flat 3" hose which will roll or fold up compactly.

One thing to mention about 99% of all pumps is that they quote the output under optimal conditions. Once you add lift head, hose friction, and voltage drops, you're lucky if you get 50% of rated performance. Secondly, Would you put your vessel's future on something you got from Ebay?
 
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