Seal or Grease?

When was the last time you changed your seal? I would replace your seal and repack it with grease, maybe upgrade to a double seal if you have enough room between your coupler/safety collar and your shaft log. Alot of people use J drains and have no problems, I personally use plugs because all it takes is a little piece of debris to get caught in the J drain and you will have water coming in. Get a good bilge pump. PM Dimarco21 I think he is the one who makes a really nice shaft seal/bearing in 1 inch and 1 1/8 inch.

X2 with flat chance on j drains. If you leave the boat in the water and are getting ready to hit the beer on shore, do a feel check on each drain to make sure theyre seated and no twigs, leaves or any other debris are sticking out. If there are, your boat will take on some water pretty quick. I'ts pretty much common sense but I found out the hard way, came back to my boat to find it sitting really low. Another 30 minutes or so it would have sank. The culperate, a tiny leave sticking out of the j drain holding open the seal.st Other than that, they worked fine.

J drains work fine, if you are going to leave the boat in the water unattended then just stick a expanding plug in the drain hole from the inside. That's worked for me for many years.

My last boat had the flapper drains in it when I got it. Got a small peice of twig or something in one that kept it from sealing one race when I was held up on the rope for about 45mins or so. The boat was un-knowingly fill up with water. When we finally got to run I took off and all the water went to the back of the boat throwing all the weight to the back. I did not know that it was filling up with water until my legs got wet after I had to lift when the thing chimed and almost crashed.

My opinion is they would probally be OK for circle boats but I would not use them in a drag boat. Just my .02

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is your stuffing box the type with the packing in it? or the regular seal.....i used to have the packing type pain in the ass for me anyways......i changed over to a single seal (would have got the double but had clearence issues) and haven't had a problem yet.

stuffing box seals

they make a seal with a stainless steel spring that wont rust regular seals only come steel and will only last maybe one season only cost 2 or 3 dollars more and the life of this seal is well worth it use only marine grade grease

I use a j drain on my flat, but I also have an auto matic bilge pump setup as well. For some reason there seems to be a lot of guys who shutter at the thought of the pumps. I have auto matic pumps on all my boats (fishing, etc). I don't understand why anyone wouldn't, but that's only my take on things.