Trolling motor smoking....help!

dolfanpete · May 9, 2009

I have a bow mount minn kota trolling motor. yesterday after manuevering through some lilly pads, my foot peddle started smoking, and even some fire started coming out of it! I had to disconnect the TM from the battery to stop it. It only would give me trouble when trying to accelerate, not when turning left or right.....is my trolling motor dead, is it repairable??...any help would be appreciated

CarlF · May 9, 2009

I would say you have a serious short in the controller!
Open it up & see what you find.

dolfanpete · May 9, 2009

yeah, i'm going to do that. i'm hoping that it's fixable.

CarlF · May 9, 2009

If the short is in the foot controller, the motor itself should be fine. Probably fixable.

BLK fisher · May 9, 2009

From being in the pads, the prop wasn't able to spin at full capacity, it was having resistance from the pads which cause the motor to draw more current which in turn more than likely started to melt the wires starting at the foot pedal and working its way back. Check that first and if so, cut it back and reconnect it passed the melting point with fresh copper and then add a in line fuse rated for the size gauge wire your mototr has.