So long story made short. Boat is a 1998 370 Sundancer with 7.4s and V-drives. It originally came with the Tides lip seals. At some point, a previous owner replaced the Tides with the PSS face seals. Pure speculation on my part, but probably done prior to 2016. So the bellows, while it looks good (no cracks) is most likely past its 6 year replacement recommendation. So fast forward to today.
They are fine at rest, and at idle RPMs -- no leaks. I do get some leaking at cruise, say 3000 RPMs (haven't really dialed in when the leaking begins). Bilge pumps may come on every 30+ min or so. The port bellows looks really compressed, probably 1/2 to 1 inch more than what is stated in the installation manual. Haven't measured the starboard.
Talked to the marina, and they are now using the Lasdrop mechanical seals. https://lasdrop.com/index.php/gen2/
The primary difference is that they don't use the bellows to provide the face seal pressure, but instead use a spring and put it on the rotating half of the seal.
So here are my options. (1) Fart around with it and try to get more compression to get a few more years out of them. (2) Do a bellows replacement (saving the marginal seal cost) or (3) go with the marina and the new lasdrop seals? What say you? Thanks in advance.
They are fine at rest, and at idle RPMs -- no leaks. I do get some leaking at cruise, say 3000 RPMs (haven't really dialed in when the leaking begins). Bilge pumps may come on every 30+ min or so. The port bellows looks really compressed, probably 1/2 to 1 inch more than what is stated in the installation manual. Haven't measured the starboard.
Talked to the marina, and they are now using the Lasdrop mechanical seals. https://lasdrop.com/index.php/gen2/
The primary difference is that they don't use the bellows to provide the face seal pressure, but instead use a spring and put it on the rotating half of the seal.
So here are my options. (1) Fart around with it and try to get more compression to get a few more years out of them. (2) Do a bellows replacement (saving the marginal seal cost) or (3) go with the marina and the new lasdrop seals? What say you? Thanks in advance.