A chunk of keel

[cuthbert]

Anyone seen anything like this before?

keel1.jpg (91.4 KiB) Viewed 2021 times

This happened when the yard was placing the boat down on wooden supports. What has everyones interest is the bonding materials used, thicker on the RHS than left. This is the rear of the keel. Any comments/advice? I have owned the boat for 14 years and it has 4 years prior to that. It either has been damaged and repaired or built like that at the factory.

[russp]

Shows what I know, I have always believed Catalina sales pitch that lead just deforms if hit and doesn't fracture, therefore a lead keel is much safer than a cast iron one. Maybe not!

Russ

[wolfe10]

Hard to believe that amount of filler from the factory.

Sure wonder if this is a poorly done repair from damage before you bought it. May even be repair from damage on a truck delivering it.

[Flagmanmike]

From the look of the "fracture", it appears to be a real fracture and not a filler with a cold shut. It looks both ductile and brittle. I wish I had a better look at the fracture surfaces. If you intend to follow up on this, do not rub the fracture surfaces together as it will ruin the tell tale signs of exactly what happened. Please keep the surfaces untouched.
I did failure analysis for over 20 years and would like to look at the fracture. Good macrograph photos might be sufficient. Or if you wand to send me the one half in the hand, I would return it.

Message me if interested.

[cuthbert]

All fixed in the same day, epoxied in and glassed over. So it will remain a mystery, but thanks for offering to look at it. But in a bit of reading around the internet I suspect that this happened at the factory or during delivery.

Totally seperate note..... A quick pic. Since I have had the boat for engine 1000hrs (1300 total) and I had last done a PSS maintainance kit(change bellows etc) in 2011, I thought while the boat was on the hard I would replace the lot, here is the composite face the metal was essentially unmarked. Bottom line I could have just changed the bellows again but this gives peace of mind.

Sturdy stuff that PSS.


OBTW If anyone has a 14R10 M series prop for sale I would be interested.

[Captain Kirk]

Regarding the PSS seal:

In my experience in industrial operations they use what they call mechanical seals ( as opposed to packing gland seals) which are installed on many different types of pumps, the lifetime of these seals is typically more than 5 years. These industrial seals use a graphite surface as does the PSS on the stationary side. The rotating side can be metallic like on the PSS, or it will be another graphite surface. The shafts runs at similar RPM to ours but their seals use a metallic bellows not a rubber bellows. When the seal fails of course it leaks; often the failure is a split open metallic bellows or its worn out seal faces, or both.

The pumps run 24hrs/day and normally about 350 days/year. So that's over 8000hrs a year or 40,000 hours before failure! The regular maintenance check is simply to maintain cooling/lubrication water to the seal.

So we probably just need to replace the rubber parts i.e) the bellows and the O-rings (on the rotating metal collar) on our PSS seals. My bellows was showing cracks at 1600 hrs. and I replaced it at 1800 hrs. The cracked bellows did not leak, but I replaced it anyway. The 2 surfaces were like new.

BTW I was told by a PSS rep that the water connection on low speed vessels - sailboats- is no longer recommended. Not sure I would want to run without it though.

[Bob_A]

Hello Kirk

I am very interested to learn more about the Rep's comment (recommendation) regarding the vented loop to the PSS seal.
Having just completed a arduous replacement in Feb I am a bit concerned by this.
I reached out to PYI and they do not support this comment and maintain that for boats like ours staying under 10 knots it is not necessary to install the loop but doing so is not an issue. Pressure should not exceed 10 PSI which would cause spray out between the carbon stator and the stainless rotor.
I will find the time to submit this adventure as it exceeded 2,500.00 and involved a new shaft, cutlass bearing and split coupler. The hard way to accomplish fit and face.
The machine shop specializing in all things marine (in this area) is V.M. Dafoe on Powell St. Vancouver. You may want to consider one of their split shaft couplers (semi split in reality) a huge improvement.

[Captain Kirk]

Hi Bob

Rep told me that seal water is not required on slow boats, i.e.) sailboats. This is because the seal normally has (sea) water in contact with it and is lubricated that way. I'm supposing that fast boats with planing hulls lose direct contact with the water and so the seal can run dry and wear out.

On our boats however there is also no need to disconnect the water if its properly installed because it certainly can't hurt anything. So no action required for any C350 owners who have a properly installed system.

Here's interesting part; the yard that replaced my seal a couple of years ago found that the seal water retrofit kit supplied by Catalina had been installed incorrectly on Sand Dollar. The PO probably did it himself and he Tee'd into the raw water on the discharge side (low pressure side) of the heat exchanger instead of the inlet side, so there was little water pressure and probably little or no water flow to the seal all that time, over the 12 years!

He suggested just taking the Tee out of the raw water line, but leaving in place the small line between the seal and and the vent loop. So, no water connection to the seal. However it does leave the seal open to atmosphere which allows the seal to vent and therefore sea water to enter between the two faces of the seal to lube and cool it.

It works fine, with no issues. Again the sea water in contact with the seal does the job.

Re: the split coupler, its on my list. It took the yard 6 hours to get the existing coupler off the shaft, but had to re-use it after installing a new PSS due to timing to the splash the boat. So next haul out it gets split coupling. I have used Dafoe in the past to replace a bronze shaft with a SS shaft, they did a good job.

Hope this helps, not sure if I got everything right or that I even explained it well....

[Bob_A]

Thanks Kirk,
Appreciate that clarification.
I agree, If you have it in place there is nothing to worry about. Leave it be.
If I understand what the yard said to you I would disagree.
I am looking at the original drawings supplied with the retrofit anti siphon kits from Catalina.
The vented loop to the seal (the lower loop behind the stairs) should be installed in the discharge line from raw water pump to heat exchanger.
Happy to scan these drawings if you like. If you consider the function of anti-siphon rather than seal lubrication you can see that it has to be that way.
The seal get plenty of raw water past the cutlass at no or low speed. Drawing it in under pressure isn't necessary (or good). Trusting that I'm understanding what you and the yard are saying, if your "T" is on the discharge side between the raw water pump and the heat exchanger then it is correct. Or 85,000 Catalinas out there are wrong. Perish the thought.

[Captain Kirk]

Hi Bob

Yea if the drawings show it placed in the discharge side then the yard did get it wrong. When I questioned them at the time they assured me it was wrong and even mentioned something about that setup could restrict coolant flow and cause engine overheat ???? Anyway I took them at their word, but goes to show even the "pros" get it wrong.

It works fine, so I'm good with it as is. Under 12 knots we don't need pressurized water. But in 2003 PSS was advising the water was required then changed that at some point.

On my 1995 C320 I had a PSS installed that was an earlier design and had no water connection point on the seal at all. That worked well enough but since it was an unvented seal it needed to be manually burped when putting the boat back in the water after a haul-out. Pull back on the bellows to burp out the air in the shaft tube, get a little water in but worked.

Cheers