JamesT
Active Member
Hi all. My boat is a 2011 and I took ownership of her in late 2013 at approximately 400 hours. In summer of 2015 around 550 hours I self diagnosed a sea water leak into my STBD pod and short hauled for an emergency reseal of my shafts and upper pod seals. (I posted that on here under "Zeus POD Emergency Repair.") At that time is when I first learned how shaft seals score prop shafts. Each time I had my shafts re-resealed since then (for PM) the Zeus tech (Richie out of Cummins in Kearny, NJ who is a rock star) would move the seal to a different place on the shaft which only works for so long until you run out new places. Thanks to some folks on this site I learned of a company in Seattle, WA who ceramic coats shafts for all sorts of machines, Zeus shafts included. This cost me $375 per pair, versus probably $10K per pair of new shafts that will score anyway. The ceramic coat is applied just on the part of the shaft where the seal rides. It is many times harder than steel and can only be cut with diamond. So I took a chance and had Cummins remove my shafts last Wednesday, I overnighted them to Seattle, WA to have them coated and I received them back in my hands yesterday. I was my own GC on this job, and if I had to do it over again I would have hired Doug at Campbell's Marine in Oxford MD. Doug removes the gears and bearings from the outer shafts before shipping and then reinstalls them upon return. I did not know they could be removed and subsequently shipped them with all that attached which added to shipping cost and packaging as the gears and bearings are very sensitive. The company in Seattle (www.flamespray.us) has to remove them to do what they do, so it would have better to remove them beforehand. In any event, the shafts are going back on the boat tomorrow with new seals. I'm also having the pods lowered to get all new seals on the tops. I had my STBD done in 2015 and my port has never had those seals done. So after all this I'm hoping I'm going to have the purest gear lube out of all y'all!
Here's a photo of my inner and outer shafts righter after they came off last week. You can see the scoring in multiple places on both shafts. The 2nd photo is a pic I took yesterday of one of my inner shafts after it was coated so you can see what this ceramic stuff looks like. The yellow is a sleeve that Flamespray put on for shipping and handling. I can tell you that my finger can not distinguish any seam between steel and ceramic, nor can you feel a difference in layering. It's pretty amazing. Fingers crossed that all goes well tomorrow. I don't think we'll get a sea trial in but I'm supposed to launch on 3/19.
Here's a photo of my inner and outer shafts righter after they came off last week. You can see the scoring in multiple places on both shafts. The 2nd photo is a pic I took yesterday of one of my inner shafts after it was coated so you can see what this ceramic stuff looks like. The yellow is a sleeve that Flamespray put on for shipping and handling. I can tell you that my finger can not distinguish any seam between steel and ceramic, nor can you feel a difference in layering. It's pretty amazing. Fingers crossed that all goes well tomorrow. I don't think we'll get a sea trial in but I'm supposed to launch on 3/19.