What length shaft do you have ?
I have a '19 Ranger Rt178 with a Terrova 55 and when I run the trolling motor at any speed it sounds like it's "whacking" through the water. This happens at any speed and at any depth that I set the motor. It's like I can hear each revolution of the prop. There's no wobble or shake. The boat and everything on it is brand new, only had it on the water twice, less than 2 hours on everything....Is this a normal thing with these motors?...Thanks....
What length shaft do you have ?
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Take the prop off, rotate it 180 degrees and put it back on. That helped mine. It makes no noise at all unless I get up to 35-40% power, which I rarely do.
Also, deploy it while trailered (GET READY TO PAUSE IT SO IT DOESN"T HIT THE TRAILER) and turn it on. If it doesn't make the noise, it may be the alumiunum boat flexing causing the noise.
I have spent most my life fishing........the rest I wasted.
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PICO Lures Field Rep
"G" sorry I didn't see your last reply but you might be onto something...I have a 75 Merc 4 stroke and three batteries and my dad was sitting in the back (225 lbs)...There has never been more than a quarter tank of gas but that thing is definitely heavy in the back...The second time we launched it I unhooked the front on the boat ramp and the front end raised up off the trailer about an inch or so and kinda bobbed up and down (and it was pulled all the way up to the roller)….Like I mentioned earlier I've only had it out twice and that was really just to run the engine for some break-in time....I played around with the trolling motor for about 30 minutes on the last trip so I really haven't given it that much attention....I did put it down as far as it would go and it still made the noise....It looked like it was at least 18-20 inches in the water...When/if my yard ever dries up (boat garage is behind house) I'm gonna do what FurFlyin said and get it back out and hopefully find out what's going on.....
can you take a picture of the trolling motor deployed while its on the trailer ?
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strmwalker, thanks for the reply... I will get a pic and try to post it later today. I've been thinking about all that weight in the back of the boat and wondering if it is drawing the front of the boat up out of the water too much and thus causing the motor to be tilted upwards in the water when it is deployed...I assume that if it is tilted then the motor would be "struggling uphill" to pull the boat and maybe causing the noise....There is no wobble, jerk, bounce or any other abnormal thing going on...The motor is rock-solid once it's deployed and pulls the boat just fine.....
So I think I found and fixed the problem....I deployed the motor with the boat on the trailer and noticed that the tiny gap between the prop and the armature head got larger and smaller on one side as the prop turned (prop spinning off-center)...This wasn't noticeable with the motor in the water.....I took the prop off and discovered that the armature shaft (drive shaft) was off center inside the bushing and actually touching one side of the bushing...The metal on the face of the bushing was sticking out more on one side than the other side...I tapped the metal washer (bushing) in until there was equal space around the armature shaft and put the prop back on and re-deployed the motor and the noise was gone!....I think that the motors come without the prop installed so apparently the guy at the dealership didn't check this when he installed the prop....I took a before pic and before and after videos but I don't know how to post them.....I wonder if there was anything else that I should have checked or done to keep this from happening again?....I hope this helps anyone else that might run into this problem...