[Public-List] Stern tube

[David Fay]

Hi Gerard,

Here's my take. It's very hard to discover the source of a stern tube leak without disassembling it. So my guess is that you are going to have to take everything apart in the end.

But you can proceed in steps and maybe get lucky. The first step would be to assume the leak is at the joint between the cutless bearing housing and the hull. So you can remove the housing (but not the stern tube) and seal up that joint. Then put the boat back in the water and see if the repair worked. That's what I did in my first pass at stopping my leak. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Unbeknownst to me, the threaded joint between my stern tube and the bearing housing was defective so water inside my stern tube was able to escape and find its way into the boat.

The result was that I had to have my boat hauled a second time. On my next attempt to fix the problem, I removed the stern tube, discovered the problem with it, and replaced it and the bearing housing with a fiberglass tube. This was a big job, but was unavoidable. If I had disassembled the stern tube the first time around, I might have discovered the real problem and avoided having to pay for a second haulout. Or maybe not.

David
Blue Teal #284



> On Jun 6, 2020, at 10:29 PM, Gerard Kuperus via Public-List <public-list at lists.alberg30.org> wrote:
> 
> Thank you again for all the very helpful replies to this topic. I managed to schedule a haul-out for Wednesday, which was a bit of a challenge as boat yards have been closed earlier and many don't allow DIY.
> As I am getting ready for the haul out, I am wondering how to approach this. First, I need to figure out the source of the leak. Can I inspect the stern tube without taking it out?
> If the stern tube is fine how do I go about the repair? Clean everything as best as possible? Then pump a ton of 4200 in the the area between the stern tube and the surrounding deadwood? It seems that there is some rubber seal. Should I worry about that?
> Would it be best to take out the stern tube anyway? It seems Mike got a solid approach to removing it, but again I would rather leave it in unless absolutely necessary.
> 
> Gerard
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