I want to replace my PSS shaft seal for the sake of my peace of mind, as it is at least 10 years old. A shipwright has recommended a Tides seal over the PSS. The tides works more like an automotive oil seal with a spring holding tension around a couple of lips on the shaft. I have no doubt both seals are good but would like to hear the collective opinion of more experienced sailors. The boat is a 28 foot mono. with a shaft drive.

I would say that the pss on a prop shaft is a far superior seal application than a double lip mechanical seal. I have a pss on my boat and would never change it. If I had to,, I would go back to a gland packing. Pss seals are far more tolerant to abnormalities than double lip seals .

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RileyMorgan said..
I want to replace my PSS shaft seal for the sake of my peace of mind, as it is at least 10 years old. A shipwright has recommended a Tides seal over the PSS. The tides works more like an automotive oil seal with a spring holding tension around a couple of lips on the shaft. I have no doubt both seals are good but would like to hear the collective opinion of more experienced sailors. The boat is a 28 foot mono. with a shaft drive.

I would suggest leaving it alone. It's probably done very little work in the past 10 years.

I had a PSS on my last boat and a lip seal with my current boat. It was grease fed and got hot so I engineered a swap to an oil fed 3 lip seal system with a barb added underneath the bronze housing which allows the oil to flow through it to cool it. The aluminium reservoir tank holds about a litre of oil. If you swap over to a lip seal system you need to remove the springs and swap them with O rings. The bearings shop will help you with the right O ring size.

Thanks for the replies. I think I will keep it. Other forums have all sorts of opinions. It's the old case of ask 10 sailors and you get 10 different
opinions. Will probably use their service kit of new bellows and hose clamps etc. It does seem to me to be the best system.