crankbait09
Well-known member
Okay, little rundown of my situation
My boss at work had never been fishing before, or if he has, it didn't amount to much at all. So we picked a day that we would hook up and i'd take him out and hopefully land him a couple fish and hopefully find a new hobby he'd like to pursue..........
if things could go wrong, they did....let me explain as well as ask a few "why's"
problem #1. Trolling motor - I have used this trolling motor a number of times with ZERO problems. Yesterday when I had it running, I just happened to see smoke coming from the trolling motor area below me. I look down, and the wires, wire nut, and electrical tape were melting before my eyes.. I quickly shut the motor off, went back to the battery compartment to see if the wires were hot there...no luck. everything was cool like normal. So I went up to the TM and started to peel off the electrical tape and the wire nut completely melted in half and I pulled it a part and it reminded me of taffy. Now, the red wire (hot) was perfectly fine, no heat, no issues what so ever. It was the black wire that had a complete meltdown. When I pulled the wire apart and tape and nut off, I couldn't see any issues to what could have caused this. Can anyone offer any ideas to what happened?
problem #2. transducer - this was prior to the TM issue but we were trolling along like normal and all of a sudden my depth finder screen went to zeros. I turned off, then back on, still zeros all across the board. SO I went to the transducer to see if the transducer some how fell off the boat. nope, still in tack. I searched for the wire, found it. it was cut in two. crap, I can splice that together and get it back up and running so no issue there. regardless, it was another item that was disabled.
problem #3. the engine. We left the dock and right before we hit the "no wake" bouey, the engine started coughing and jerking. I was thinking maybe an air in the line so I kept going. It worked it's way out (whatever it was), then a few minutes later, it did the same thing. It never stalled though. It was idling, and although it sounded bad, it continued to cough, jerk. I made it to the cove we were headed for, then the TM took over from there.........Then after we lost the TM, we decided to head back to dock, the engine was hard to start and the handle that controls the shifting, starting, and accelerating was very hard to turn....harder than normal. Finally I got the engine to start, so back to dock we started. Still running like crapola, we then lost a good 50-75% power and it seemed to run on one cylinder. Every once in awhile, the second boost of energy would kick in, and the motor would run the way it was supposed to. then a few seconds later, it would go out again. SO the engine finally dies but we had the dock in our sight, so my boss decided to get the oar out and paddle us in to shore.....thankfully we were close enough to dock that it wasnt that many rows before we docked.
I was really hoping to provide my boss with a fun day on the water but that did not happen. I think I am very grateful that he has a sense of humor. He was laughing a lot, during all this drama. I have to admit, I was laughing as well............we had a good time, nice bonding experience. He bought me lunch and we left laughing. He said he'd go out again with me, but I gotta get this boat situated.
sorry so wordy but thats my story. any advice on the motors would greatly be appreciated. I thought of taking the motor in to have it fixed but I'm hoping its easy enough for me to diagnose and fix........
I am far from boat motor savvy so if you could keep it in lame mans terms id appreciate it.
motor/boat specifics in signature
My boss at work had never been fishing before, or if he has, it didn't amount to much at all. So we picked a day that we would hook up and i'd take him out and hopefully land him a couple fish and hopefully find a new hobby he'd like to pursue..........
if things could go wrong, they did....let me explain as well as ask a few "why's"
problem #1. Trolling motor - I have used this trolling motor a number of times with ZERO problems. Yesterday when I had it running, I just happened to see smoke coming from the trolling motor area below me. I look down, and the wires, wire nut, and electrical tape were melting before my eyes.. I quickly shut the motor off, went back to the battery compartment to see if the wires were hot there...no luck. everything was cool like normal. So I went up to the TM and started to peel off the electrical tape and the wire nut completely melted in half and I pulled it a part and it reminded me of taffy. Now, the red wire (hot) was perfectly fine, no heat, no issues what so ever. It was the black wire that had a complete meltdown. When I pulled the wire apart and tape and nut off, I couldn't see any issues to what could have caused this. Can anyone offer any ideas to what happened?
problem #2. transducer - this was prior to the TM issue but we were trolling along like normal and all of a sudden my depth finder screen went to zeros. I turned off, then back on, still zeros all across the board. SO I went to the transducer to see if the transducer some how fell off the boat. nope, still in tack. I searched for the wire, found it. it was cut in two. crap, I can splice that together and get it back up and running so no issue there. regardless, it was another item that was disabled.
problem #3. the engine. We left the dock and right before we hit the "no wake" bouey, the engine started coughing and jerking. I was thinking maybe an air in the line so I kept going. It worked it's way out (whatever it was), then a few minutes later, it did the same thing. It never stalled though. It was idling, and although it sounded bad, it continued to cough, jerk. I made it to the cove we were headed for, then the TM took over from there.........Then after we lost the TM, we decided to head back to dock, the engine was hard to start and the handle that controls the shifting, starting, and accelerating was very hard to turn....harder than normal. Finally I got the engine to start, so back to dock we started. Still running like crapola, we then lost a good 50-75% power and it seemed to run on one cylinder. Every once in awhile, the second boost of energy would kick in, and the motor would run the way it was supposed to. then a few seconds later, it would go out again. SO the engine finally dies but we had the dock in our sight, so my boss decided to get the oar out and paddle us in to shore.....thankfully we were close enough to dock that it wasnt that many rows before we docked.
I was really hoping to provide my boss with a fun day on the water but that did not happen. I think I am very grateful that he has a sense of humor. He was laughing a lot, during all this drama. I have to admit, I was laughing as well............we had a good time, nice bonding experience. He bought me lunch and we left laughing. He said he'd go out again with me, but I gotta get this boat situated.
sorry so wordy but thats my story. any advice on the motors would greatly be appreciated. I thought of taking the motor in to have it fixed but I'm hoping its easy enough for me to diagnose and fix........
I am far from boat motor savvy so if you could keep it in lame mans terms id appreciate it.
motor/boat specifics in signature
