KIWI Shaft Seal
The stainless steel Kiwi Shaft Seal™ offers protection for your vessel, keeping crew safe and dry. The Kiwi Shaft Seal™ is a New Zealand made product which is easy to install and has a 15 year pleasure craft or 5 year commercial craft guarantee (Conditions apply).
It has taken 30+ years of marine industry experience to develop and refine this breakthrough alternative to stuffing box and mechanical type marine shaft seals.
The Kiwi Shaft Seal™ is available from 1” to 6” in ¼” increments. (Equivalent metric sizes available on request).
New Safety Feature!
Each unit is now fitted with a Heat Sensor – Kits come complete with a dash mounted warning system that activates if the seal is compromised due to lack of coolant.
Kiwi Shaft Seal™
The design consists of a single piece stainless steel housing with a single lip seal configuration. This results in a NO maintenance, completely rebuild able and safe seal.
The Kiwi Shaft Seal™ carrier is manufactured from stainless steel, which is light weight and durable. The guide bush (Thordon) fitted into the carrier contains friction reducing additives for longer life and reduction of noise. This Thordon material has Lloyds, Bureau Veritas, ABS and Nippon Koiji Kyooki approvals.
The lip seal used in the Kiwi Shaft Seal™ assembly is a radial lip seal. With the advent of harder and higher grades in stainless steel, shaft wear is practically non-existent with the Kiwi Shaft Seal™ arrangement.
The Kiwi Shaft Seal™ design utilises straight reinforced hose since it does not require great flexibility to provide compression like a mechanical seal. The reinforced hose is fastened to the shaft seal carrier and the shaft log with the aid of stainless steel hose clamps.
The Kiwi Shaft Seal™ is cold water (salt or fresh) lubricated through a water feed line. A SS water feed fitting is drilled and tapped into the seal housing for security. A stainless steel ball valve and tails are supplied with every unit to regulate the water flow rates for the different seal sizes.
All Kiwi Shaft Seal™ are individually built and each unit has an engraved serial number that relates to the original customer history.
- Easy Installation
- Maintenance Free
- Fitted with Heat Sensor
- HI-TORQUE Stainless Steel Hose Clamps
- High Performance Radial LIP Seal
- Marine Grade Stainless Steel Housing
- Thordon Guide Bush: contains friction and noise reducing additives
- Adjustable Compact Length
- Rebuild-able: you only purchase ‘new’ once
- Customer Identified with Build Number
- Individually Tested
- Strong Reinforced Hose
Additional safety feature: Heat Warning System.
Thordon Small Ship Bearings™ (SSB)
Thordon Small Ship Bearings are designed to replace rubber, brass shelled bearings that have been used in GRP, Bronze, Steel or Aluminium housings.
It is expected that a Thordon bearing should provide double the life of a standard Rubber cutlass, Phenolic or Polyester bearing in the same environment.
If a Thordon SSB needs replacing one simply heats the bearing ID e.g. heat gun, and push out of the housing. Fitting a new Thordon SSB can then be interference freeze fitted, glued or press fitted into housing. Standard supply is freeze fit. Please advise option at time of order.A product guarantee of 4 years for commercial vessels and 8 years for pleasure craft applies – conditions apply.
Thordon SSB bearings are made from Thordon SXL material which is successfully used in a wide range of demanding environments, including Hydro turbines in which the bearings are expected to operate 24/7 for 20 years!
Bearings can be supplied off the shelf in standard sizes to suit 1” to 4” shafts (sizes range in ¼” increments) and custom sized bearings 12” and larger can be machined on request.
- Variety of marine applications including, Struts, Stern tubes & Rudders
- SSB standard sizes suit shafts from ¾’ to 4”
- SSB will not lock onto the rotating shaft
- Can be machined to custom sizes to suit supplied housing & shaft measurements
- Rolls out particles without scoring the shaft or liner
- Less wear and greater misalignment tolerances as a result of a larger water film
- Does not require ANY grease
- Easy to replace – can be glue, press or freeze fitted
Easiflow Stern Tube™
Easiflow stern tube system is a specially designed and formulated composite tube to take the place of conventional metallic stern tubes and rudder port housings.
It is manufactured to a very accurate ID and is designed so it does not absorb water and swell over time. Easiflow Stern Tubes are colored black.
- Designed to be fitted with Kiwi Small Ship Thordon bearings
- Manufactured to a very accurate ID & OD
- Accommodates all sizes of Kiwi Shaft Seals
- For shaft sizes 3/4" to 4" in diameter & lengths up to 5 metres
- The number of Kiwi Small Ship bearings and position in stern tube can be easily adjusted to provide correct shaft support
- Can be fitted to any type of hull construction
- Able to be fabricated into Aluminium, steel, timber, GRP(fibre glass)
- Will not suffer from corrosion