Mission Complete!
With taking several breaks, I guess it only took me about three and a half
hours to complete my trolling motor installation. Hardest part of course was
figuring out how to reach the bolts at the very front of the bow. I couldn't
find the wrench extention thing on NTOWS, but figured it couldn't be hard to
figure out how to make. My first attempt was too short, but that problem was
solved on the second attempt! A little overkill, but it did just fine.I finally got a little smarter and removed the cover where the trolling
motor plugs in and the trim buttons are, so I could them see what I was
doing. Idiot me did the removal of the old ones by feel alone. While I had
that cover removed, I found a convienient set of wires with a plug that went
nowhere. I spliced into them, after checking the voltage, and wired the new
fish finder there. (Eagle 320) Seems that I didn't have any of the gasket material that I thought I had,
but the old motor was mounted on small blocks of rubber pads, so I was able
to re-use them to keep the motor off of the gelcoating. The battery charger
is designed for 12/24 volts, so after reading the installation guide "one
more time", I felt safe hooking it up on both batteries. They're charging
now, and so far there hasn't been a fire! Guess I'll give it a try on the lake tomorrow to see just how happy I really
am. The winds have been a little rough today, but the weather is nice enough
to have to deal with them. If the winds carry over until tomorrow... I'll
really give that motor a workout. Oh yeah, I looked for a 50amp trolling motor fuse/breaker at BPS like the
one I have on there now, but couldn't find one. The one I have is a
40amp/24v. Hopefully, I won't have to spend the day resetting that thing.
The wiring is 8gauge, so I didn't have to run new wire. Thank goodness! |
Charles
Mar 5
2005
|
| Well, we put the new trolling motor through its paces today. Worked like a
champ. Very quiet.... solid. Good job, Charles. We're ready for some river
fishing now! While we were on Percy Priest, we figured we might as well wet a line, too.
A nice 4.5 pound smallmouth pounded my bait. Photo posted on ABPF.
|
Joe
Mar 6
|
