Stuffing box adjustment

[barling]

The recommended tool to tighten the stuffing box on my Ranger 31 is two "rigid E 100" tools which cost $30+ each. Won't two same size pipe wrenches also work? For 40 years I've been adjusting my one inch shaft on my sail boat successfully with a similar tool.

What do you, who have adjusted a 1 and a half inch shaft more than once. say?

 

[Red Raven]

The space in the bilge on our R27 Classic is very tight and the two nuts are very close together. The E100 wrenches are narrower than standard allowing them to fit on each nut without interference. The angle on the E100 also helps to get optimal leverage between the two wrenches. I tried unsuccessfully to use two standard pipe wrenches before buying the E100. I was successful with just one E100 and one regular. The E100, however, worked well enough that I went ahead and bought a second one. The cost of the wrenches is nothing compared to the pain of messing around in that tight space.

Go ahead and give the standard wrenches a try on your boat. Perhaps you have more room.

Curt

 

[Chimo]

What Curt said goes for me too!

 

[Trisailor]

I went straight to the E-100's and added a couple of cheaters made from two 1 ft sections of 1 inch stainless rail tubing. Had to "squish" one end of the tubing a bit to get a good fit ovr the handles of the wrenches, but it sure makes it easier in that tight space to loosen the nut to adjust the stuffing box. Also added a couple of clear plastic tips to the dummy ends of the cheater tubes to make it easy on the hands.

 

[Hydraulicjump]

Want to add to this that the cheater tubes are a godsend when you have limited leverage. Just one of them is needed to bust the locknut loose.

Btw. I use a Rigid wrench and an adjustable packing nut wrench ($18 on Amazon) to do this. Along with a cheater tube.