J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Stuffing Box flax (sp?) size

What size of flax do you use on the J30 stuffing box. I assume you use 3 pieces? Any other comments on replacement.

In this old thread three rings of 1/4" packing is mentioned. You should check out the Goretex packing instead of the flax for longer life and less friction on the shaft.

Rhapsody went to a PYI PSS Dripless Seal years ago and it works great.

My stuffing box is dripping a bit as well, can you remove old stuffing and repack while the boat is in the water?

I just had repack the stuffing box on mine, hull #185 yesterday. 3/4" shaft. There was a 1/4" packing material left over from the previous owner. I was a bit concerned doing it with the boat in the water, but figured I'd give it a shot. There's a few videos on YouTube which show how to cut the packing material. It took a pretty good sized pipe wrench and a slip joint plier to break the nut free. Once I got the nut free, I was able to dig out the old packing material. It appeared to be 1/4", but it did seem like a larger size might also work. When you separate the stuffing box, you'll need some kind of pick to get the old material out of the larger nut which will be the one closest to the yanmar. I have a nifty right angle crafstman one. Water does come in, but not nearly as much as I had feared. I think maybe a gallon came in during the time it took me to repack it. I polished up the shaft a little with some fine wet/dry sandpaper. I also used a small piece of 3/4" PVC about 2 inches long and cut in half lengthwise to slide over the shaft and pack the wraps into the larger nut.It takes three separate wraps. I used the recommended Syntef lubricant. Make sure to stagger the seams 120 degrees apart. It seems these stuffing boxes are supposed to drip approximately 1 time per minute with the engine running and in gear and not at all when not in gear. The longest part about the whole job was tightening and loosening the nut until I got to around 1 drip per minute. Good luck!



Erik

One thought is to get a hold of some butyl rubber and dive under the boat and pack it around the shaft from the outside to keep the water out while you do it. Then peel it off after complete. Just stuffing a plastic bag in there should do the same thing and slow the flow enough.