Beware of bearings in driveshaft tube

When replacing the drive shaft dripless seals in my boat, I also had the cutlass bearings replaced (inside the supports near the propeller) while the driveshafts were pulled out. When driving the boat back to its homeport after the repairs, I noticed a strong vibration, sounding like a clothes drier tumbling out of control with an unbalanced load of laundry. When the marina that had replaced the bearings looked at the problem, they discovered that they had missed seeing bearings (somewhat hidden) inside the driveshaft tubes. Apparently when reinstalling the starboard driveshaft and pushing the shaft back through the shaft tube, the bearing (which was probably very old) broke into pieces, which caused the vibration when the driveshaft was turning. The replacement of the broken shaft tube bearing fixed the vibration problem. So, the lesson here is to be sure to check for bearings in the driveshaft tubes when replacing the cutlass bearings!



Jim Geier
Cheoy Lee Trawler 55

Beware of leaking cleats

I noticed one of the cleats on our boat was loose, and tightening the screws didn't help (they just spun around loose). After taking the cleat off, we found that several of the brass screws had broken off at some point in time, which probably loosened the cleat and let water in (which in turn rotted the wood). That explained why there was a leak in the forward stateroom just below the cleat.

What we found after taking the cleat out...



After clearing out the rotted pieces of wood...



After adding some reinforcement...



After finishing with filler, with the cleat shinned up and ready to go back in...



Jim Geier
Cheoy Lee Trawler 55

Fuel leak fixed!

After buying my boat, there was a smell of diesel throughout the cabin areas, enough to cause clothes to smell like diesel when returning home after staying on the boat for even a couple days. I was noticing 2-3 tablespoons of fuel accumulating in the bilge under the starboard engine (Catapillar 3208, naturally aspirated) every couple of weeks. I would clean that up often, which helped keep the smell down to a tolerable level. Meanwhile, I searched for the source of the leak by carefully examining the fuel tank, fuel lines and injectors. I could not find any leaks in those areas. After taking the air filter off one day (after months of frustration), I was surprised to see a small trickle of fuel running across the manifold and down the back of the engine into the bilge. I had found the leak! After further investigation and some research online, I discovered that the problem was a leaking seal associated with the throttle shaft. Apparently that's a common problem on Catapillar 3208s. Now, I just need to fix it!

Jim Geier
Cheoy Lee Trawler 55

Teak restoration testing - TeakGuard

My Cheoy Lee has lots of teak trim around the outside of the boat, with varying levels of finish decay. I've been researching what to do with that. Some prefer not to apply any treatment to the teak and let it gray naturally. That is certainly the easiest in some cases; however, on my boat that still requires a lot of sanding to remove old finishes to make it look consistent. I also personally prefer the rich brown color that teak presents when finished, so I've been looking for a good way to make it stay looking like that. One method that I've been experimenting with is called TeakGuard, which leaves a natural brown finish with a slight sheen (not glossy and smooth like varnish). For testing purposes, I applied TeakGuard on a small section of my swim platform a year ago, and it still looks good today (see photo below). With TeakGuard, you sand the wood, use a teak cleaner, clean with water and then apply several coats of TeakGuard starting after the surface is dry. I found this process fairly easy. They say it may be necessary to apply another coat each season (which is all you need to do for maintenance), but based on the results of my swim platform test (which was subject to sun, rain and Mississippi heat), it may go a bit longer before needing a maintenance coat. Based on these results and talking to others who've used it, I'm planning to apply TeakGuard on all the outside teak.

Jim Geier
Cheoy Lee Trawler 55

Dripless shaft seal leaks

After driving my boat, I noticed some water in the compartments under the dripless drive shaft seals. In order to get a better idea of what was going on, I monitored the seals while the main engines were run at different RPM settings. At lower RPMs, I saw small bits of water spurting from the seals periodically. At higher RPM, water actually sprayed from the port seal. That's not good! (click for video) I tried tightening the tension of the springs by loosening the set screws on the carbon ring and sliding the ring toward the back of the boat. This helped some, but there was still some water leaking at higher RPMs. Of course dripless seals are not supposed to drip any water. At this point, the next step would be to try cleaning/sanding the seal's carbon flange and rotor, but since I was planning to haul the boat out for bottom paint soon, I decided to wait until then to do any further work on the seals. I'm not crazy about having water gush into the boat while cleaning the flanges. (When inspecting the seals after the haul out, I found that considerable work would need to be done to clean them, with no guarantees that they wouldn't leak afterwards. Also, the springs were nearly worn out. So, I decided to replace the seals.)

Jim Geier
Cheoy Lee Trawler 55

Burned shore power connector

I noticed that the AC appliances on the boat stopped working while running on dock power. Checked the dock circuit breaker (still on) and volt meter (read 110 volts instead of 250 volts). After wiggling the shore power cord at the boat end of the cable, the appliances started working again and volt meter read 250 volts, then everything quit again after a few hours. Disconnected the shore power cable from the boat and found the connectors on the cable / boat badly burned / corroded (see pics below). This could have been caused (by the recent previous owner) disconnecting the shore power cable without first shutting off the shore power. The wires inside the boat leading to the boat connector were very stiff near the ends attaching to the boat connector (see pic below), likely resulting from high current caused by the corroded connections. Replaced both the male shore power connector and female boat-side connector. To enable good current flow, cut off the stiff ends of the wires and reconnected the resulting good wires to the boat-side connector. Tips: TURN POWER OFF BEFORE DISMANTLING TOUCHING ANY OF THE WIRES!!! and take photos of the wiring before disconnecting wires in case you forget how to rewire it when putting everything back together.

Jim Geier
Cheoy Lee Trawler 55