Just an update to this. Last weekend I got my son to crawl into the bilge thru the port deck locker. I first removed the shelf and vertical retainer in the deck locker, which gave him better access to the Stuffing Box I was totally prepared with PBBlaster, a pick to remove the old flax, pre-cut Dura-MaxX Ultra, and a short piece of PCV cut to use to seat the new packing. Since my boat is in fresh water, the stuffing box nuts came off fairly easy using 2 large pipe wrenches, although access was tight. My son use the pick to remove only a single ring of old packing (surprised that there weren't more). The PVC worked great to seat the new rings (replaced with 3) and everything went back together fine. Now we are waiting for splash for final adjustments. Have to say that the hints and pics posted on this website were invaluable in getting this job done quickly and easily. THANKS!!
