23 IB - How Many Drips for Stuffing Box? How do you Adjust?

[John3325]

I recently repacked the stuffing box in my new to me 23SF inboard. I put the packing nut on hand tight, and did not over crank after installing new GTU packing. I tightened the lock nut up, and took her out for about an hour/hour and a half. Everything I read online said to do this to conduct the initial break in period of the packing. Well, 1.5 hours later my stuffing box is up to 120 F per my IR Temp Gun - Too hot!

Since then I backed it off even more, and kept running it, adjusting it, trying to get it to drip every few seconds at cruise, more sparingly at idle, and as little as possible at rest.

I am curious as to what other IB owners have done adjusting stuffing boxes in these hulls, and what everyone gets on average for a drip?

A guess is that the "tunnel" sometimes induces cavitation, but I find it hard to believe this would make the packing nut that hot.

I think at this point I may pull the packing out and start over again using regular flax packing since the GTU seems to drip more than the regular stuff I pulled out.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance for the help!