Trolling Motor Swap MG for MK

[Bud Kennedy]

Turns out the swap out of my old Motorguide Tour 70 in favor of a new Minn Kota Maxxum was not big deal.  The mount had a hole pattern that allowed the use of the existing holes in the boat.  The toughest part of course is reaching up under the boat to bolt everything into place.  The manual from MK was fairly complete and mostly step by step,  The new MK pedal fits well into the recessed tray and putting on the new power plug was equally as simple.  The manual suggests installing the mount is a two person job but I was able to do it easy enough  by myself.  May have been easier if I had longer and slimmer arms.

Had to upgrade to a heavier circuit beaker in the trolling motor circuit.  The physical location for the old circuit breaker is in a hard to reach location that required me to lay flat on the deck with my head down in the battery compartment to see and reach the old breaker so I could disconnect it.  Again longer arms would have been helpful but I got it done.  Unfortunately I seem to have bruised a section of my rib cage that is better today but a tad sore yesterday.  Us old guys are just not used to that kind of stretching and hanging over the lip of the battery compartment.

So, all in all it was a simple install just a bit inconvenient reaching some of the places.  I have tested the motor and it seems to run just fine but tomorrow will be the on water test to check it out completely.  Hopefully I get everything done correctly and the test will be uneventful.

[Ron Fogelson]

So how did it go? Well I hope 

[TNDiver]

I did mine myself and it went fine, but I could have used another person.  I did mine with the boat in the garage which presented its own problems with height restrictions.  Still need to get it out on the water to get the right height for the motor and see how it works pulling the deck boat.  I am doubly excited to have a back up motor in case something goes wrong with the main one.

[Cuervo Jones]

Did mine myself too. Not a big deal. I DID ask my wife for a hand holding the screwdriver when I had to get the last screw in way up under the nose of the bow. But otherwise, very easy. Upgraded the circuit breaker too with no problems whatsoever.