Northwest Fishing Reports

The Minn Kota trolling motor on my son's bass boat died. It is a 65 AT/FC and worked very well until it got hung up in a lot of weeds when we were fishing last weekend. The motor was working when we pulled the boat out of the water but when we double checked it yesterday it wouldn't spin. We've trouble shot it about as far as we can and believe the problem is in the motor lower unit itself. We have good power (24v.) going into the motor but when you push the momentary on switch and release the voltage coming back out of the lower unit going to the foot control drops to 12 v. and stays there until we unplug the motor from power. Upon replugging in it then returns to 24v. The motor does not spin the prop no matter what we do. If anyone has any ideas we would like to hear them. It is about an hour or so to the only repair center in western Washington and it is not open on the weekends. The motor is only 13 months old so should still be under warranty. Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer.


Virgil

Can you rotate the prop manually? If yes.. It sounds like you got water inside the unit and it may be shorting out something. It also possible that if the weeds were putting to much of a loat on the motor, you could have run to much current throught it. But, if its on that used the PWM for motor control then Im suspecting the control board got wet or damaged.

I had the same thing happen to me for a different reason but I took it in and the guy told me I was minutes away from ruining the motor. You must have gotten water in it somehow. Depending on the extent of the damage it may or may not be repairable but I would definitely get it to a certified repair shop. It is probably a flaw and may be a warranty issue. Sorry, that sucks. I would rather have my big motor down than my trolling motor down. You can still fish wiothout the big motor.

Well my son took the motor in to the repair center. It will take at least a week to get it back. The repairman wasn't sure it would be covered by the warranty. While my son was there someone else brought in the same exact motor with the same problem. Time will tell I guess.

vbm wrote:Well my son took the motor in to the repair center. It will take at least a week to get it back. The repairman wasn't sure it would be covered by the warranty. While my son was there someone else brought in the same exact motor with the same problem. Time will tell I guess.

Not sure where you took it, and I hope they solve the dilema.... but for future reference you can go to "Angler's Choice" located in the Shoreline area, just N. of Seattle. They are an authorized Minn Kota repair shop. They just hit me for some $$$.$$ but it's running sweet again. Good luck.

Ballinger way just east of I-5:-$ :chef:

They get her dialed in

Having been down this road before its probably not water damage. With a heavy weed wrap it put too much load on the motor. If you're lucky it'll be a circuit breaker but more lucky is burned windings. Big $$$$$$

My son took it to Angler's Choice which is over an hour from Spanaway which is south of Tacoma. I'm afraid it's going to cost big bucks as I believe it got hot when getting into weeds. It appeared to run well after the encounter with the weeds but the boat was left uncovered during a rain storm so we're not sure of the problem. One of the main reasons my son bought this particular model was because it was supposed to handle weeds better than other models. At least that was our understanding. LOL. I guess there is no such thing as a weed handling electric motor. I'd like to thank all of you that have posted replies and suggestions. I'll be sure to post the outcome of our little adventure.

We got the motor back last Friday. It had a burned up brush plate and was fully covered by the warranty.

Good Info, Thanks!

check the brushes and gaskets same thing happened to mine and it got water threw the bad gaskets and ruined the brushes