The drip from the shaft seal stuffing box is persistent even when I am at my dock, so I decided to get some PTFE impregnated flax to replace what was there. But instead of flax, my stuffing box has a clay-like material, which seems to be what Nigel Calder calls dripless packing with “clay-like consistency that can be rolled between your palms until it is an appropriately sized diameter to go in the stuffing box.” But he says this should be installed between conventional flax packing, while in my case there is none. Instead, this clay-like material is all there is between the packing nut and the lock nut.
I have removed this material from the stuffing box and plan to put it back between two rings of PTFE flax on either side of it. I believe the width of the flax should be 5/16”.
Does this make sense?