Anyone Ever Shorten a Trolling Motor Shaft?

[Frogman Ladue]

Anyone Ever Shorten a Trolling Motor Shaft?

I got a 36" shaft on my tinny, and this thing is way too long. When I get the tiller down to a comfortable level to use, the motor unit is "feet" below the boat. The shaft has enough flex in it, I get trim problems when running loaded. Steering is sluggish and sloppy. If I lift it up a few feet, everything is as it should be...other than the tiller is above my head.

Can shafts be shortened?

This is a MG unit. AFAIK, MG doesn't carry 30" shafts for this particular unit.

Thoughts?

 

[richg99]

Hmmm It seems to me, that when you pull the head off of a MG unit to reverse it..(for use on the bow instead of the stern) that the shaft top is nothing more than a flat cutoff with, perhaps, a notch cut out of it. You would have to re-drill the horizontal screw holes that fasten the head to the shaft.

If that old memory is correct, pulling the head off and cutting the shaft should be an easy task.

You may, or may not, even have to shorten the wires. If you have a Dremel-like cutting tool, you could slice a piece out of the shaft vertically...and then cut the shaft horizontally. Done properly, the piece you cut off will drop to the floor and you can then just re-mount the head. the wires might tuck away without cutting them at all.

Obviously, I have never done a shaft shortening myself.

As I said above, however, I'd pull the head and see what the shaft-top looks like first. Easy enough to do. Let us know what you find, please. regards, Rich

 

[oukast]

I shortened the shaft of a Minn-Kota a few years ago. All I did was use a pipe cutter to cut the shaft where I wanted it. Used a cut off wheel on my Dremel to make a slot down it so I could peel it off the wires. Drilled a new hole for the set screw and put it back together.

 

[JMichael]

I've shortened a few of them over the years. It's pretty simple to do as described above. First you need to determine exactly how much shorter you want the shaft to be. Remove the control head take notice of the alignment of the bolt hole or slot in relation to the motor. This will be important for keeping the handle alignment the same after you cut the length.