Replacing Dripless on a 2001 380DA

60 and sunny today. Great day for bilge diving.

Got the shaft back into position and through the stern tube. Inserted the red "hat" into the dripless and slipped it over the end of the shaft under the engine. At precisely that moment, my buddy Chris showed up to check on his boat. Instead I sent him under the boat to start pushing the shaft further in as I held the dripless in position.

Here it is in position, hose clamps not tightened yet. The red hat protects the lip seal from damage as it slips over the keyway and threads. It also protects it from any nicks or dings in the shaft. I had the shaft at home and sanded it down step-wise to 600 grit paper, so there was not a nick or pit or anything to damage the lip seal.





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Put the keyway and coupler back on with a little Mercury Extreme Grease, put the nut on the end with a schmear of anti-seeze, mated up the two coupler ends and tightened everything up. Removed the red hat thingy and it's done.

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In the pic below you can see the other hose barb for the crossover. This boat did not have a crossover. I had spoken a couple of times to the tech people at Tides and they said that I can create a crossover on the dripless on the other engine (which only has one hose barb) but cutting the water feed and putting a "T" in. I was originally NOT going to do this - rather, I was going to remove the the 2nd hose barb (it's threaded in) and place a nylon plug. But I was guilted into it by someone. So now I need to order about 20' of 3/8" Type 1 fuel hose (that's what Tides recommends) and a brass T.

So this saga will continue.

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You are much safer with a crossover.

Strong Seal/Sure Seal Operation, Maintenance and Troubleshooting
*Should the boat need to be towed, the drive shaft should be immobilized or the engines
allowed to idle to provide lubrication water for the shaft seals. If a crossover line is fitted
on a twin engine boat only one engine need to be idled.
*If a twin engine boat is to be operated with one engine shut down, a crossover line needs
to be installed or the nonworking shaft immobilized.
 
Headed down today with 20' of type 1 fuel line, 8 hose clamps, a brass T and all sorts of zip ties - regular ones, screw in ones.

Started on the new dripless. Slipped the hose over the 2nd nozzle and started to dress the 20' along, zip-tie'ing it to all the other stuff that runs forward along the stringer. Had to dress it across with width of the engine room, connecting with some other bundles of wire and loom to the starboard engine. Pulled the hose off the old dripless (which has only one nozzle) and inserted the T in the end. Cut a length of hose about 12" long and inserted one end into the dripless, the other end into the perpendicular part of the T. Then cut the long hose that originates on the port side to the correct length, plus an extra foot or so (see it coiled up below). If/when the stbd dripless needs replacement, this will give me enough length to make it down to the 2nd nozzle.

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Here is the T. The hose coming from the top of the T is the one that goes to the port (new) dripless. The hose going downward goes to the single nozzle in the old dripless. The one to the right comes directly from the bottom of the exhaust manifold.

You can see that if I cut the hose coming from the port side just long enough to reach the T, there would not be enough length to reach to the dripless when/if it gets replaced in the future. Thus the extra length that's coiled.

I need to get smaller hoseclamps (there's only one clamp on the one coming from the other side). Relax...boat's not going in the water for another 6 weeks.

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That's the end of the story. Time to start the next project.
 
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Well, boat was launched today and in the short ride from the sling to the slip no leaks. Still need to run it at hi speed to be sure.
 
No Leaks? Not one? Not even a small drip from when you dropped the dental pick?

Dale
 
No... but I'm not getting cocky just yet. Have to run it at more than 800 RPM to be sure!
 
Ron, absolutely an awesome post... wow, learnt a lot reading this one. Thanks for sharing the process!
 
Glad it was enlightening. Before I started this process I really didn't understand what dripless shaft logs were and how they worked. I was used to good ole stuffing boxes with packing and a big huge nut that you tightened when there was dripping.
 
Great post, thanks for the lesson!
 
new boat owner for first time. bought 1997 370 sedan bridge. how do i change the seal on a strong seal dripless shaft?
 
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