first run today and.....

[Darin Jordan]

Is the outter stuffing tube damaged in any way. Sounds like there may be a kink/dent in it somewhere. Teflon should slide right inside. Please let us know.

[jnation89]

i look into the stuffing tube and dont see any damage. plus just the flex shaft slides in fine, but the tubing just wont go in. it came out fine once i got the shaft unstuck, but wont go back in. and it was 100% stock i havent even tried a new prop.

[Steven Vaccaro]

Ok, we have figured out that there is something in there. Try putting something smaller down the brass stuffing tube and see where it hits and it its solid. See if it will move from the motor side, if it doest try the strut side. I'm not sure what the strut bearing looks like yet, but I'm wondering if it could be part of the strut bearing.

[jnation89]

i slid just the shaft in and it goes in no problem, but the sleave is a different story. its like it is too big, which i know isnt whats wrong.

[Steven Vaccaro]

i slid just the shaft in and it goes in no problem, but the sleave is a different story. its like it is too big, which i know isnt whats wrong.

Well if the shaft goes in and there is absolutely no interference, its probably the Teflon. Try stretching it a bit to see it you can slide it further down the tube.

[Darin Jordan]

Well if the shaft goes in and there is absolutely no interference, its probably the Teflon. Try stretching it a bit to see it you can slide it further down the tube.

I'm a little unclear on what is going on.

If the shaft slides into the teflon just fine, but the teflon won't slide into the stuffing tube, then something has to be wrong with the stuffing tube.

If you slide the teflon in, and it stops part way, you've found your interference point. It's either kinked, or dented, or ???.

NOW, that being said... and keep in mind that I haven't had mine apart yet to examine the teflon to see what type they use, but sometimes these boats come with a much harder, white colored teflon liner that isn't very flexible. I usually pull it out and replace it with standard Octura or ??? style teflon like Steven sells at OSE.

However, if the old teflon came out, then it should go back in, IF the brass stuffing tube is not collapsed somewhere and is otherwise undamaged.

Very interested in figuring this out, so please feedback your findings...

[jnation89]

ok now ive got somewhere.
first i checked the tubing as good as i can and see no obstructions. its really like the teflon tubing got bigger after i took it out. so i tried what steven said and stretched it out a little making it thinner. oiled it up and got it alot farther, but still not all the way. this is weird. also any ideas on why it seized in the first place? and while i got you guys here what prop would you recommend for a hop up? thanks for all the help

[Darin Jordan]

also any ideas on why it seized in the first place? and while i got you guys here what prop would you recommend for a hop up? thanks for all the help

OK, I'm just guessing here... I haven't had a chance to pull mine apart yet, so I don't have a good idea of what is there to start with.

My guess is that there was tight spot in the teflon that got heated up when running (5-minutes is actually quite a bit of run-time, so things can get warm) and when it heated up, it expanded the teflon, making it tighter ID, and expanding the OD.

"normal" (Non-RTR) teflon, usually fits into the tube fairly loosely. The tolerances on stock teflon might be a little tighter.

All just guesses, of course. Could have just been a bad piece of teflon and an anomoly, unique to your bad and just bad luck. Hopefully it's not something more widespread, but luckily, it's an easy thing to correct (buy some teflon liner from OSE.com and get back to running.)... Hopefully that's not required, however.

I'll try to get on my "race prep" soon, so I can explore and maybe highlight some areas that can be made more reliable and "race ready" with some tweaking...

[jnation89]

ok so what size teflon liner should i buy? thanks again that does make sense.

[Steven Vaccaro]

ok so what size teflon liner should i buy? thanks again that does make sense.

I dont have my Geico boat here to measure, how long is the stuffing tube? I may have a loose piece hanging around that I could send.

[GeoVW72]

What end did you remove it from?

I removed mine from the motor end of the tube and it fit very loose.
It was also clear Teflon that looks decent
There's about 2 in of solid strut rod on the prop end of the shaft

Maybe the flex shaft tried to extrude the Teflon out the strut when it got hot and then froze

I'll measure the Teflon and post part pics tomorow

[Diesel6401]

Did you guys read this? http://forums.offshoreelectrics.com/...d=1#post225193

Could be the issue in this case as well.