Water leaking around drive shaft - normal / not normal?

[pap]

Background: boat is 2009 21V, excellent condition. We were down on Norris lake about a month ago and there were a LOT of sticks and logs. A couple of times we hit them and I felt the prop "lock up" for lack of a better term, it shuddered and I cut to neutral almost immediately and then it went right back to normal.

However since then we have been noticing the bilge running more than normal (it basically never ran before, now it will kick on maybe every 20 min or so when we're in the water.

Based on another episode (Did we kill our engine..." (https://forum.supraboats.com/showthread.php?11205-Did-my-knucklehead-family-kill-my-engine) I was running a fake a lake today to check the engine and new raw water impeller and noted during this time quite a bit of water coming down around the shaft as it exits the boat to the prop. More so even than was coming out the exhaust.

Is this normal? Or does it (as I suspect) indicate that we did some damage and need to have the shaft re-sealed or worked on? If damage, can it wait until end of season, or should I have it fixed sooner?

Thanks so much for any help - as a fairly new boat owner and relatively inept mechanic I sure can use it!

[docdrs]

This is normal, its from the line that so called cools the shaft seal. You may want to look and see where that line comes off the engine. You may also want to remove your rear seat and storage compartment and view the shaft seal from the port side while the boat is at idle forward and under way to see if there is any leakage from the shaft seal internally. I have the same boat

[Suprasaltare28]

Just to be safe i would change it.Just make sure that it doesn't ruin your weekend or your season.

[docdrs]

Just to be safe i would change it.Just make sure that it doesn't ruin your weekend or your season.

Not sure what you want him to change? Has a dripless seal , and has already changed his impeller.

[cigars n scotch]

Odd, and a bit ironic I found this thread today. I have an 08 21v and today after pulling out from this private lake I was at I stopped right after I pulled it and was removing my drain plug when I noticed water (a good bit of it) draining from the shaft as well. Never noticed it before because on my normal ramp I can't pull out and just sit there for a couple minutes. I was wondering if this was normal since I hadn't seen this before. Figured it was, but I am going to check what doc has suggested just to be sure. I normally do not run with my bilge on at all times, guess I should be. Come to think of it now, this is probably foolish. I'm going to check next weekend if I get out and post up what I experience if anything.

[pap]

Just a follow up - based on the recommendation above, I pulled out my rear seat and cooler when the boat was in the water. I found water streaming (small but a continuous stream) from what I would call the speedometer pickup unit. This has an outer tightening ring, which I turned and the stream stopped. I couldn't see any other water leaks.

I'm not exactly sure how this works, but it appears that being slightly loose (again not sure how that happened) was likely affecting the accuracy of the speedometer. I've posted many times how we cannot seem to get any decent wave for wakesurfing unless we slow way down.... well it appears the speedometer was reading about 2-3mph slower than actual speed because now what we were seeing at 7.4 mph is now about 10.2-10.4, right where everyone else says it should be.

It also explains why going what I thought was 18mph wakeboarding seemed faster and more painful during heel plants as it was more like 21mph.

We downloaded an iphone speedometer app, and I'm not sure how accurate they are, but we are now reading just about 0.5mph different than what the app says.

So I'm very glad it wasn't a shaft leak, I have no idea why it was loose, and I still see a lot of water that drains around the shaft after I pull the boat out of the water, but the extra running of the bilge is fixed, my speed for learning wakeboarding is more accurate, and it didn't cost me any repair fees thanks to everyone here who helped.

Thank you.