Shaft Seals

 Once the shafts were out of the boat, I started on the shaft seal replacement project.  It's kind of foolish not to do this when the shafts are out of a 16 year old boat, in my view, due to all the labor involved in pulling the shafts.

And, it's a good thing I pulled the shafts, because the plastic bushing that guides the shaft on the seal housing came out with the starboard shaft!  This was something I had never seen before, as the bushing in the seal housing (I think it's Delrin) is bonded into the seal housing, and isn't ever supposed to come loose.  I have to assume there was a water flow restriction to the seal housing at some point in the boat's history, which caused the housing to overheat, thereby weakening the bond between the bushing and the housing.

So, I had to knock the thin wall bushing off the shaft before the shaft would slide out of the cutlass bearing.  The port side came apart normally.  Once the shafts were out, I was able to pull both seal carriers from the shaft logs for inspection.

They failed.  Obviously the starboard housing was shot, but the port side was worn too, so I tossed them both and opted for new replacement assemblies.

Adding insult to injury, I completely failed to take any pictures of the old seals before discarding them, so you'll just have to take my word for it!

The shafts themselves were in excellent shape, and really only displayed some normal polishing on the running surfaces:

A trip down to my local prop shop, along with the couplers, revealed that they also ran true, and needed no machining before re-installation.