turn prop shaft by hand?

[g36]

f-32 225 chryslers and velvet drives. first i am having no problems that i know of and this maybe a dumb question, but how hard should it be to rotate your prop shaft by hand? boat in neutral no engine running. i have never had an inboard so i wondered should it be somewhat easy to turn or very stiff. if the packing nut is really tigthened down will it get to a point that is too much as to actually create a problem. mine is very difficult to turn. actually both port and stb are very hard to turn. i have had the boat out for bottom paint and props rebalanced and cutlass bearing was ok, havent had this boat but 3 months. so much to learn. any thoughts?

[TADTOOMUCH]

I just replaced my zinc anodes on my shafts on my 1978 F-32 and the shafts turn pretty easy with only about 5-10 ft-lbs of torque. Should be able to rotate it with one hand. When the boat was in the water did you have some water leaking from the packing nut area? If not, then they are too tight or they are packed with a special no leak material and not the OEM materials. If it is the OEM packing you should see a drip about once every 10 seconds or so. If they are too tight it will heat up and burn out the bearings and packing. Are you sure you are in neutral position?

[g36]

thanks for the reply yes i was in neutral, before i bought the boat there was a leak on the shafts at the packing, i asked the seller about this and since he was not one to get his hand dirty he said he would have them repacked, and the next time i saw the boat there was no more leaking but i wonder if all that was done was just tighten the nuts to stop the leak. thats why i am wondering how hard it should be to rotate. i know that it takes alot more effort to turn mine than what you had stated yours were to turn.