I successfully did the nasty last summer and got our shaft coupling disconnected from the prop shaft to remove the shaft from the boat for inspection and maintenance. Not unexpectedly, the miserable part was getting the coupling to slide off the shaft. As I approach reassembly, I wonder what product to use between the shaft and coupling to make the job easier next time.
Over in the Sailnet Gear & Maintenance forum, Maine Sail reported on a succesful 2-year trial of Tef-Gel at
http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-m...-complete.html. Don suggests Never Seize, but on purely theoretical grounds I wonder about the mix of metals in such products and whether they can contribute to corrosion around seawater.
I can't get my hands on Tef Gel here in eastern Canada (Western Marine in Vancouver sells it to distributors only). I managed to get a tube of Duralac, and wonder if it might work. Lanacote is available in the Maritimes (Binnacle), and I wonder if it might work too.
Thoughts?
(Photo: The "before" state. Everything is disassembled, cleaned and repainted now. The insides were in surprisingly good shape, but dry with a slight bit of rust in places. I had the coupling, shaft and cutless bearing professionally inspected.)