Replacing Motorguide Shaft

[warefishin]

I am going to try to document the process of replacing the shaft in my motorguide. I hit mine pretty hard on a log and bent it up, but I am also going to go to a 36inch shaft too.

 

[warefishin]

Here is the motor before I started. I left it down and was trying to jump a log That was slightly submerged.

Its a 12 volt motorguide.

 

[warefishin]

Its bent up pretty bad I went ahead and ordered a 36 inch shaft and 13 inch outer to replace the 46 inch shaft and 20 inch outer. I think this is going to be perfect.

 

[warefishin]

The first thing I did was use an allen wrench to loosen up the collar that connects the shaft to the outer sleeve.

 

[warefishin]

Then I loosened up the three screws under the head of the trolling motor that makes the top of the head come off.

 

[warefishin]

Then I removed the 6 screws that are under the hood to relese the steering cable. I cut the wires because I knew I would have 10 inches of extra wire because of the shorter shaft. if I had it to do over again I would have just squeezed the factory connections with pliers so I wouldnt have to worry about coming up short with a couple of inches of wire from the harness.

 

[warefishin]

[attachment=-1]20140611_135547.jpg[/attachment]

 

[warefishin]

This allows you to free the foot pedal cables from the motor.

 

[warefishin]

At this point you should be able to slide the outer sleeve up and down since the bottom plastic piece of the head is only connected to the sleeve. I bent the outer sleeve on mine so it would only come down a couple of inches before it hit the bend.

 

[warefishin]

The gear that is attached to the top of the shaft will have to be removed next to replace the shaft. I read online that it was attached using loctite so I used a heat gun to heat it up and then used a pair of vice grips to remove it. Its on pretty tight but if u heat it enough it shouldnt take a ton of force to get it off.

 

[warefishin]

At this point if you arent replacing the outer sleeve you should be able to slide it off and lay it aside. If you are like me and have to replace the shaft too then you have to drill out the rivets that attach the bottom of the head to the outer shaft.

This was the hardest part for me because the rivets are stainless steel and much harder to drill out than regular aluminum.the drill bit kept wandering and was going to damage the plastic so I drilled the tops off the rivets and then used some needle nose vicegrips to pull them out from the back inside the tube.

[attachment=-1]20140611_161650.jpg[/attachment][attachment=-1]20140611_161218.jpg[/attachment]

 

[warefishin]

[attachment=-1]20140611_135852.jpg[/attachment]

 

[warefishin]

The plastic piece should slide down and off the bottom of the outer sleeve. But since the bottom of the outer sleeve was kinked I had to use a sawsall to cut off the top lip and then slide the piece off.

[attachment=-1]20140611_162745.jpg[/attachment]

 

[warefishin]

To remove the shaft from the lower it is attached with loctite for sure so you definitely have to heat it up. I laid the lower on a flat surface and after heating up the connection used a pipe wrench to unscrew the shaft from the lower. Again use a good bit of heat and then try it. I have read a lot about people stripping the threads forcing it.

[attachment=-1]20140611_164236.jpg[/attachment][attachment=-1]20140611_164242.jpg[/attachment]

 

[warefishin]

I will post the rest when the parts come in saturday or so. I ordered the shaft the outer sleeve and the rivets to replace the ones I drilled out. I bought a thing of loctite at the fastenall store today.

The one thing I am worried about right now is attaching the stainless steel rivets I have read that a regular rivet gun will not work on stainless steel rivets. I am going to look around for one the next couple of days. They have the heavy duty rivet guns at lowes for about 50 online they were over 100 at fastenall.

 

[Bugpac]

Were do the rivets go? Its been a while since I repaired one. Actually I shortened it.

 

[warefishin]

They attach the plastic head the the outer sleeve

 

[Bugpac]

Nevermind. I see the pics now. Mine had screws in it.

 

[kofkorn]

Nice writeup! I don't have one of these, but I can see this being really helpful for someone who does. Keep up the good work.

Good luck!

 

[warefishin]

Thats what I was hoping for I didnt see it done anywhere and I wanted to try to contribute since I have gotten so much from everybody.