Over the winter and spring, I knew I had a leak in the (very old) PSS shaft seal, so I replaced it and the two cutless bearings. After launching I checked and there was no water under the shaft seal (there was - from our fresh water system, but that’s a different story). I ran the engine in forward and reverse and everything remained dry. I’m not thrilled with the new system with the always-open bleed line but whatever, I can’t compress the new industrial strength bellows to burp it anyway.
On Monday we left Noank for Boston via Cuttyhunk. We’d been out for 15 minutes and I checked the seal - still no leak but a steady stream of water running under the shaft into the bilge. I traced it back into the aft cabin, got the bunk boards up and water was gushing over the top of the rudder post. As I felt around on the port side, the nut on one of the flange bolts had backed nearly all the way off. I tightened it up, and the water slowed down, but after more examination I found that essentially all of the bolts had loosened up. I got everything as tight as I could underway, and spent more time on the nuts and bolts when we were in Cuttyhunk and I think it got it stopped. If it’s still leaking, it’s just a trickle but it doesn’t leak at all at rest, only underway.
There are two zerk fittings, one on each side of the shaft log, one of which was in good shape, the other was pretty corroded, but I’ve never greased this and I will need to replace them next time the boat is out.
Does anyone with an F45 know which bearing they were using on the 1990ish Freedom 45s? I was looking at the Tides site but nothing modern seems to match.