Trolling Motor Maintenance

[mygreenihc]

Everyone maintains there outboard regularly if you want to keep it running at its best.  You maintain your boat if you ant to keep it shiny and everything working correctly.  You maintain your batteries,  your reels,  your tackle boxes, trailer, etc. But,  I never hear much about trolling motor maintenance.  what do you guys do to maintain your trolling motor?  Anything?

Brad

[Donald Garner]

I lube the hinges on the mount.  I check the prop for line after every trip.  When the boat gets a washing the trolling motor gets one also.

[apenland01]

Hit everything with a screwdriver after some rough water, keep everything tightened up...

[Mike Cork]

Great topic.

I know many people don't pull their props and check for line, I've watched many trolling motors die because of this. The newer motors, last 3 years or so, have designed very good seals around the shaft but they are still not perfect and fishing line will destroy them. Then water gets into the foot and the motor will rust in no time, while cheaper to fix than buying a new one, you're looking at a lot of money that could have been prevented by a two minute task.

I try and lube the hinge points and put some grease not he wear spots monthly. I try to pull the cap a couple times of year to inspect the cable connections and wiring for heat damage (I do a lot of high speed trolling from cypress tree to cypress tree and it takes a lot of amps).

Is it's been squeaky I'll hit it with some tools an tighten things up.

[D.W. Verts]

I see where I'm getting some wear on my pull rope. I've used this trolling motor about five months total, seems a little weird.

Very few folks care about trolling motor noise, but being stealthy is huge. Ver few folks care about being stealthy... I took my prop off the other day before my first trip of the year and cleaned another wad of impacted grass from around the shaft from back in December. I then took a file to the blades and cleaned them up. An "owie" spot can make a ton of unwanted noise in the water, in my opinion.

Dale