Help/Advice: StrongSeal leaking

Prosideus

Active Member
Jun 5, 2012
635
Franklin, TN - Old Hickory Lake
Boat Info
1995 220 BR Signature
Prior Boat:
400 Sedan Bridge 1996 Cats 3116
Engines
Mercruiser 5.7
This weekend I was tidying up the ER and had some standing water in the bilge. Not too concerned because I had replaced a freshwater pump recently. I vacuumed up the water and closed her up. The next morning I wanted to see if it was dry. Well it wasn’t. I discovered the stbd dripless seal was wet to the touch on the underside. I put some pressure on the seal itself on the transmission end and water easily leaked in, a small flowing stream. I checked th port side and water would leak in, but much a much lesser amount, more of a heavy drip when pressure applied.

I suspect these are the original shaft seals and I have 1200 hours on the engines.

My questions are how concerned do I need to be right now before I get this addressed? Haul out in spring, or now? My servicing marina is about 50 miles away, so 4 hours or so. Is the seal capable of making that Journey?

Need some wisdom here. Thanks in advance.
 
After posting this, I thought to call TidesMarine and discuss with someone in tech support. Here is the troubleshooting they suggested.

1. Reseat the face cap.
2. Check water flow.
3. Confirm free spinning shaft.

Reseat the face cap
Take a nylon scrub pad and clean up the shaft ahead of the face cap. Then policy with an Emory cloth. Make sure and work around the shaft and not up and down the shaft.

Then make a mark with a sharpie about 3/8 inch from the face cap. Loosen the clamps on the transmission end of the seal and twist the face cap to break it free on the shaft. Then move it up the shaft to the sharpie mark. Also move the clamps up the same 3/8 inch and retighten.

Check water flow
I do not have a cross over. So take the hose off the face plate and see if water is freely flowing from the make adapter. If not, then a good indication of a seal or bearing failure. If so, then start the engine and make sure around a gallon per minute is flowing from the engine hose. If so, then good to go.

Confirm free spinning shaft
With the engine running, have someone move in and out of gear, both forward and reverse. Makes sure there is not a bind being placed on the face cap or seal hose. If there is a bind, then that is a bigger problem to address.

I am still looking for folks that have experience with any of this. I will report back once I have run some tests.
 
You're asking the unknowable. :)

You have lip seal. The rubber compound is held in place with a spring which applies pressure around the shaft. These things don't last forever. Moving it to a "clean" section of that shaft may help, but I would think you're on borrowed time with the seals. I assume there isn't a replacement seal already on the shaft. I would definitely start making plans for a replacement.
 
David,

I've been thru enough tides seal failures that I have changed to another brand of dripless seal.

Relocating the seal to a new spot on the shaft only helps if you have a groove worn in the shaft by the seal. Just moving the running surface won't help if the shaft isn't worn.

When a seal fails, it starts to drip when the boat is running. Next it will drip when sitting in the slip. That progresses over a period of weeks to the point that you have a steady stream running into the boat. Once you get to the steady stream stage, there is pretty much no fix other than a new seal. I have a small bilge pump I place under the engine when I have a seal get to the point that I am uncomfortable with. My portable pump has alligator clips on it for power and about a 6 ft discharge hose so I am really just pumping the water leaked by the seal into the bilge sump where the regular bilge pump pumps it overboard.

One other thing I have learned is that the lip seal doesn't just up and fail on its own. What usually happens is that the Tides housing that runs on the shaft wears and allows the whole seal assembly to wobble and that makes the lip seal wobble on the shaft which does wear them out.

Given the age of your boat, I suspect you have the old Strong Seal....the blue hose is flat. Tides redesigned the seal several years ago and they now call it a Sure-Seal (I think). The new seal has a more robust housing made from a self lubricating plastic like Delrin. If someone already changed yours, the new blue hose is corregated. The seal kit cost is not that expensive.......about $500 ea. The haul out and blocking labor, and yard labor for pulling the props and the shafts halfway out is where the expense is. If your seals are original, I would suggest you just replace both at the same time since you are already paying for a haul out, blocking and the cost of replacing both at the same time is less than 2X the cost of one because of economy of scale. Expect the cost of replacing both seal to be in the $2,500-$2,800 area.

Can it wait until spring? Yes, but you will have a wet bilge all winter which exposes you to freezes and corrosion, so you will need to figure a way to keep the water pumped out of low places in the bilge. Remember, however, that letting it go till spring exposes you to sinking if, for some reason, you lose power to the boat and your batteries run down and you cannot get power to the boat in a few days. I suspect you might negotiate a favorable cost if the boat yard you use in Nashville is like ours in Panama City Beach. Nobody spends money work on boats now and the boat yards are ghost towns until about the middle of February. After that, they get really busy and it is difficult to get work like seal replacement scheduled.

Good luck with it...........
 
It's most likely at end of life. Tides says replace seal at 5 years and entire unit at 10 years. I tried all the tricks you listed on 15 year old Strong Seal System and it always started leaking again shortly thereafter. Finally went and had them replaced with the Tides better Sure Seal.
 
"I've been thru enough tides seal failures that I have changed to another brand of dripless seal."

Frank, What brand would you recommend?
 
I think every situation is different due to the variables: location, water temperatures, water depth, bottom conditions, hours/year run, and cost, so I am reluctant to recommend a particular seal.

However, I chose Lasdrop Gen II because if its design and local users experience. So far, about 18 months, I am pleased with their performance. One thing did take some getting used to.....they will leak a bit until the surfaces wear a bit and are lapped to each other. That went away during one 12 hour trip up the coast to Pensacola FL. and back.
 
Frank,

Is this something that should be done as preventive maintenance? If so would you suggest getting this replaced on a 2008 48 sundancer?
 
Zach,

I don't think so. A leaky shaft seal is obvious so you will see it and it won't sink the boat anytime soon. That means you usually have time to make decisions and schedule the work at a convenient time.

The other thing is that where the 48 comes from has a big effect on how sound the seals are. A Florida boat has usually been run and anchored in shallow water over a sandy bottom so the seals may be a problem for you from the get go which makes the proactive question moot. Tell your surveyor to give the seals a shake when the boat is running at idle and see it a gentle shake deflects the lip seal enough to cause a leak. Look at the seals after the sea trial and see if they drip. Perhaps this will be a survey item you can negotiate with the seller and you can save the haul out and get the seals replaced before you launch the boat at her new home.
 
I just finished my 8th summer with my 32 yo 390. When I bought it, it came with the old style Strong Seals installed. After 8 summers they have yet to leak a drop (yes I'm knocking on wood) and the spare seal carriers are still there. 4 years ago I installed drive savers which moved the shafts back about an inch so now the seals ride in a different spot on the shaft. So far I am a fan and they are much less prone to a catastrophic leak than any type of spring loaded 2 faced seal.
 
Zach,

I don't think so. A leaky shaft seal is obvious so you will see it and it won't sink the boat anytime soon. That means you usually have time to make decisions and schedule the work at a convenient time.

The other thing is that where the 48 comes from has a big effect on how sound the seals are. A Florida boat has usually been run and anchored in shallow water over a sandy bottom so the seals may be a problem for you from the get go which makes the proactive question moot. Tell your surveyor to give the seals a shake when the boat is running at idle and see it a gentle shake deflects the lip seal enough to cause a leak. Look at the seals after the sea trial and see if they drip. Perhaps this will be a survey item you can negotiate with the seller and you can save the haul out and get the seals replaced before you launch the boat at her new home.

Thanks Frank... Boat arrived at our home marina today. We will keep an eye on them.
 
So the answer is....

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...pull the boat and have the bottom job done while replacing the shaft seals with PSS.
 
So I am in the marine industry and was able to go to an international workboat show where I met with the manufacturers of lasdrop and PSS. Speaking with each of them and putting hands on their products, coupled with Frank’s comments, I landed on PSS. I liked the design of PSS for me personally and also have a boating mate that has positive experience with the PSS in the waters where we boat.
 
Hi does anyone know the shaft log size on a 1998 sundancer 400 with at 3126 engines?
 
So I was on a sea trial (selling) about 2 weeks ago. Had this terrible smell start about 3/4 the way through. Couldn't find it till we got back to slip. Guess what tides seal cooked. Thank God the guy didn't back out but obviously had to fix it for him. I had an extra seal on the shaft so I pulled the old out and slid the new in. No dice. Had a pretty good stream coming in so I hauled immediately the following day. I ended up switching to the pps or pss system. Much better setup then tides in my opinion. But all said and done seal was 425 labor haul and block 700. I really don't know if he gave me a deal because my broker is my mechanic also but I was gait with the price. No more drips buyer was happy . Oh failure due to clogged lub line. Other side was restricted pretty bad as well. But survived.
 
Hi does anyone know the shaft log size on a 1998 sundancer 400 with at 3126 engines?
My 330 ec has the logs big enough for diesels mine was optioned with the 3116cats. My log size was 3.5 inches i would imagine yours is the same but don't hold me to that. I had to wiggle in a c clamp to lightly set against the log then pull it out and measure. Couldn't get anything worse in there and my electric caliper wasn't getting wet
 
But as I said they made all the molds the same to except the larger option motor shaft so they probably made most boats that have 3116's at 3.5
Tomorrow can 1800srboats they should be able to give you an exact size
 

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