Rudder Stuffing Box Packing Grease or No Grease?

[jhersey29]

I'm confused with all the articles about greasing the rudder stuffing box. The Gore stuff says not to grease it and I've found articles that say to using grease lowers the Gore performance. The Flax style packing appears to have some form of grease or wax. Using incompatible greases wouldn't be good either so that adds more confusion.

The boat does not have zerts fittings at the rudder. I know I could put one in but why not just clean it up, put the Gore in and be done?

The boat needs a new steering cable and while I have it apart I figured I might s well repack the rudder stuffing box. The rudder feels ok but a little stiff. The cable would barely move by hand and I couldn't even move the rudder by hand with the cable attached. With out the cable it takes some pressure to move it but does at least move. I'm not sure if it should move freely or have a bit of resistance.

Thanks
Jim
1999 Ski Nautique

[jhersey29]

Nevermind... Once I got it apart I could see the grease area versus packing area. The boat actually has a zerts in it but it was rusted shut and needed the gunk cleaned off to even tell what it was. I found a replacement zerts at the local auto parts store. The zerts size was 1/4 x 28 straight. The very tip of it protruded into the rudder shaft area. I removed it and filed the tip off just to where the threads started and all is well. From what I can tell a little amount of grease in the zerts would go a long way. The tolerances are very tight on the shaft and packing box housing tube.

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