I found this little pile of gritty black grease underneath the shaft of my raw water pump. There’s a little “window” in the shaft housing and it dripped down from there. Is this a sign of a bearing and/or seal failing on the water pump. We’re due to run home from the Bahamas in a couple of days and I’m nervous about losing my raw water pump during the crossing. Though I don’t know if there’s anything I can do about it…
I don’t see any sign of water / salt residue which are usually the tell tale sign of an issue so it should be ok. Just clean up the residue and keep an eye on it.
As Pascal mentioned, the little window you refer to is the tattle tell where you typically get water dripping when the pump is beginning to need work. I would clean the area and see if it re-occurs. Are you certain it’s coming from the pump?
What does it feel like? Oil? Slime? Gritty? That window would also drain oil from the engine. Next, look directly above that spot and imaging bow up running angle. Where else could it be coming from? From the Alternator?
It definitely came out of that little window. It was very gritty, almost like it had sand or salt in it. Otherwise it was black and oily but thick - it made a “pile” on the engine mount bracket. Cleaned it up and will check again after running. Glad it’s not reason for total panic.
Do you have a little magnet onboard? If the grit is magnetic, it is probably an outer bearing failing. It should get you home but in need of quick servicing. If non-magnetic, could be the rubber slinger washer or bearing cover getting chewed up. It will still get you home but not a fire drill to service.
Unfortunately I already cleaned it all up so not much to test with a magnet but I will if I see any more of it. I fished for 4 hours yesterday and saw no further deposits of the gunk. So whatever it was it’s either already completely gone or it isn’t continuing to degrade. I’ll keep an eye on it and plan to disassemble the pump when I get home. I’ve got a pretty long list of things at this point, will take me the rest of the summer to fix it all. Here’s a new one - this morning, the winch cable on my davit snapped lowering the dink into the water. Really lucky it only fell a few inches and was over the water, not over the boat (or a person). The cable, which is only about 8 months old, looks like it binded up somewhere and got pinched. Really don’t want to tow the thing 230 nm home so I’m gonna have the local yard fork it on to the bow for me.
Wire. I just replaced the winch less than a year ago so it was new cable. I could tell by looking at it though it got pinched and compromised. I’m still surprised it snapped though. I thought those cables had strength to spare. No corrosion at all.
When you can, post a picture of the failed point? Was it at the feral or just in the lead that gets wrapped on the spool? This is very disturbing and may need to be addressed to the vendor/mfg. If you post a pic, we may need a new thread.
Ok I’ll start a new thread. I saved the cable. Gonna research synthetic options would be nice to not have to worry about corrosion and cutting a hand on a sharp point
