Service II · Mesa, AZ
Trolling Motor Installation & Repair
A trolling motor is the most heavily loaded thing bolted to your bow, and most of the failures that come through the shop are not motor failures at all — they are mounting and wiring failures. Undersized cable that drops voltage under load. A mount through-bolted into a deck with no backing plate. Corroded connections at the plug. We install new motors with proper backing and correctly sized wire, and when an existing one is cutting out or losing thrust we find out why before anyone replaces parts.
- New installations
- Wiring upgrades
- Mounting & troubleshooting
What gets checked before anything gets replaced
Voltage under load
A motor that runs fine on the trailer and dies on the water is usually a wiring problem, not a motor problem. Measuring the drop between battery and motor while it is actually pulling current tells you which one you have.
Connections and corrosion
Plugs, terminals, and the breaker are where lake water and desert heat do their work. Cleaning or replacing a corroded connection fixes a surprising share of motors that arrive described as dead.
The mount and the deck under it
A mount that flexes is on its way to cracking the deck around it. Backing plates and correctly torqued hardware are the difference between a mount that lasts and one that eventually tears out.
Install or repair, then test
Whatever the work turns out to be, it gets run and tested before the boat leaves — deploy, stow, steering, and thrust through the range.
This work, on real boats
Full deck on a white Triton, trolling motor mounted and stowed. Bow carpet cut around the mount so the backing plate stays properly seated. 
Ranger bow from above, trolling motor stowed on its mount. Cable routed along the gunwale instead of left loose across the deck.
FAQ
Trolling Motor Installation & Repair — your questions
My trolling motor keeps cutting out. Is the motor dead?
Usually not. Intermittent cutting out most often traces back to voltage drop from undersized or corroded wiring, a tired battery bank, or a breaker on its way out. All three are cheaper than a motor, which is exactly why they get checked first.
Do I need heavier wire if I upgrade to a bigger motor?
Almost always. A higher-thrust motor pulls more current, and cable that was adequate for the old motor will drop voltage under the new load. That shows up as weak thrust and premature battery sag, and people usually blame the new motor for it.
Can you mount a trolling motor on a boat that never had one?
Yes, provided the bow can carry the load. That means proper backing behind the deck rather than bolts through bare fiberglass, and a look at where the batteries and the cable run are going to go before anything gets drilled.
Will you work on any brand of trolling motor?
The common freshwater brands on Arizona bass boats are all familiar territory. If a repair needs a proprietary part only the manufacturer sells, you will be told that up front rather than after the boat is already apart.
Should the trolling motor share a battery with anything else?
No — it wants its own dedicated bank. Sharing with electronics or accessories means your sonar browns out every time the motor surges, and it shortens the life of the batteries trying to do both jobs at once.
Mesa, AZ
Want this done?
Send us the photos.
Send photos of your deck, your trailer, or whatever is bothering you, and we will tell you what it takes to put it right.
Call (480) 686-1644- Quality craftsmanship
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