2001 21v taking on water

[Will5150]

Yesterday, i was out for about three hours when I noticed the bildge is COMPLETEY full! I have NEVER had water in it and was wondering if the packing on the drive shaft is going out- how fast will it blow out? Could this be the case or could it be a water line that's cracked?

If I put a fake a lake on the boat, can I identify if the packing is leaking? Suggetions are appreciated!

Thanks!

BTW- it seems to only take water on when we're under way- or possibly it just comes in faster when the motor is running harder?

[dogbert]

It's likely that your packing is leaking, but you may have more problems than that. Your bilge should never be completely full because your automatic bilge should have started pumping water out, so I'd check the bilge pump as well.

If your packing does leak, it will leak all the time. If your bilge only fills up with water while running the engine at higher RPMS, you may have a different problem.

To check the packing, you'll need to remove the rear center seat bottom. There are 2 screws inside the cockpit and two wing nuts (or bolts) that go through the flip-up seat back. These should be accessible through the engine cover.

Then back your trailer into the water and examine where the shaft goes through the hull. If you have more than a drop or two every few seconds, your packing needs to be replaced. There's a thread around here somewhere on this.

If it's not leaking there, then my guess is that your cooling system is leaking somewhere. I've had the plastic drain plugs on my engine break off. These are pretty easy to check as well. Just start your engine and check all the drain plugs (2 on either side of the engine block, 2 on the exhaust manifolds, one by the water pump and one by the fuel cooler). After one of mine broke, I asked my service manager about this and he said they really should be replaced every couple of years because they get brittle, especially if you use your boat a lot. Now I carry spares so I can fix it in a pinch. The bad part was trying to get the rest of the plug out of the fitting.

[Will5150]

It was the packing- now What!!!

[TRD]

If your packing is leaking see this thread.

http://www.tigeowners.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7180

[dogbert]

spharis has a great tutorial on his site.

[Will5150]

ugh- I'm not good enough to do that myself. am taking it in today - about $ 300 to fix they said.

[dogbert]

BTW, that packing will need to be replaced every few years, depending on how often you use the boat. I'd ask your service guy about what they recommend.

If you ever bend your shaft and need to have it replaced, there's a PSS dripless packing you can have installed...well worth it to never have to mess with packing again.

[Will5150]

Yeah I have herard I'd need to get this done every few years- THe boat's got almost 500 hours on it- so it figures it's due.

[Will5150]

OK - So this tells you what I know- but I took the boat in to get the packing done and it turns our I have a packless system on the shaft and all that had happened is the set screws on the stainless fitting had come loose. So they tightened everything up and no more leaks!

[dogbert]

The packless system is awesome! Glad you got it going.