small amount of water coming in stuffing tube normal?

[dontrinko]

I have a lobster boat and I get a very small amount of water in the boat. About 1/4oz in a 3 minute run. I think it is coming in the stuffing tube.
Is this normal?
How often should I grease the flex shaft? thanks, Don

[NativePaul]

Yes it is normal, you can buy seals to stop it, but a short length of silicone tube over the motor end of the stuffing tube so it just touches the flex will do the job and is very inexpensive.

Do you run a PTFE/Teflon liner? I generally do for flexies and never grease those shafts, water is a great lube for PTFE, it gets in there automatically, makes no mess, and is free, you just need to remove the flex at the end of the day and spray it with WD40 or similar to stop it rusting. The one time I ran a flex without PTFE I had to re-grease it after every run, or it would squeal like a pig during the second run, and even then the ends of my 5 minute runs were noticeably noisier than the starts.

[dontrinko]

Thanks; I do not know if I have a teflon liner on this boat. I will look. don

[Mxkid261]

I grease the flex on any of my boats before every run and pull them out/wipe down after every run but I dont run teflon liners. I was getting a few drops of water creeping up the tube of my cat but a small piece of silicone tubing fixed that same on my hydro