Any trouble with weeds damaging propshaft seal with an overhub prop?

[Ron V]

The SRX I've been running is the first overhub prop I've really run, and our local lake is extremely weedy in the summer. I know fishline has always been the #1 enemy of a propshaft seal, but the weeds seem to have a tendency to get behind the prop and I'm wondering if anyone has had any bad experience with them chewing up the seal over time. Part of the problem is that the lake is now also infested with zebra mussels which sometimes are clinging to the weeds. Considering how well one sliced my foot yesterday while wading, I don't think they would be good for the seal. There is a 30 mph speed limit on the lake so if I have to throw on a thru-hub it's no big deal. Anyone?

[crazy horse]

Ron, All I've ever run on my Viper is over hub cleavers. I've never had a problem with weeds screwing up a seal. Fishing line can do it on the older motors. When I plow though the weeds and lilly pads at the end of my lake they don't hang on to long. I have ripped my speedo pickup off and my brake pucks can't be down if I hit weeds or they don't come back up.

[T-REX]

Stay out da grass dummy!!!....ya'll ain't got no reel water up ther???...Rule ov thumb down here iz, if'in they's weeds a-flote'in, YO BOTE WON'T!!!...Damm Yankeez, buy'em bookz, send'em ta skool, an all they wanna do iz tha teacher

[crazy horse]

T-REX, Yer right about that. I do my damndest to stay out of the weeds at the end of my Moms little 35 acre lake but I always try to hit 80 when I run out there and I always run out of lake at 77 with the stock case. So sometimes I slide into the weeds tryin to turn around before I plow up the wet lands.

[chynewalkr]

the weeds get so thick up here from all the rich peaple dumping fertilizer on their lawns, the lake begins to look like it has 200ft of green carpet around the shoreline

[Ron V]

Rex, chynwalker's right, it's a lot different up here than what you're used to on the rivers and lakes down there. It's not uncommon to be running across the lake in 10' or even 20' of water and have weeds growing up within a couple feet of the surface. You pick them up in the shallow water near the ramp too. At planing speed you chop right through them and it's no problem. The Eurasian milfoil is a huge problem, another thing from the Middle East we didn't need. We seem to have gotten rid of that in our lake but now the cabbage and coontail weeds are out of control. It's part of the new lake management philosophy ("weeds make for a healthy lake"). Never mind they wouldn't grow if it weren't for the fertilizer and overflowing septics getting washed in.

The Fox Chain isn't so bad, the water's so dirty the sunlight can't get to the plants to make them grow.

[Scream And Fly]

Ron, in NY where I do most of my boating, the flats there are mostly all weeds. On low tide, the weeds are just resting on the surface of the water, but we just run right through it. It ends up cutting a lot of grass, but I don't recall any of us ever having a problem from the weeds (other than sucking them in the low water pickups).

Greg