I just bought a used 16′ bass boat with a MotorGuide Three 727 trolling motor with 24lb thrust. The motor is 12 volt and was made back in about 1985.
When I put the motor in the water, it will run at full speed for about 5 sec and then shut completely off. I have to wait about a minute or so before it will respond again. The person who sold me the boat hard wired the motor directly to the trolling battery. I mention this only because a coworker has a later model MotorGuide and said that his has a connector plug that connects to a port at the front of the boat.
The trolling battery has a full charge ( I checked it and connected it to a charger to make sure that it was full). I suspect that somehow the motor is pulling too many amps or something and that the motor is shutting off as a safety measure to prevent damage.
Any ideas would be appreciated (other than “buy a new trolling motor”).
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First thing I would do is get a circuit breaker in the system.
Then as mentioned before something is getting hot and it is shutting down.
Look under the pedal and check ALL the connections, to make sure there is no corrosion and they are tight. Also check for what might look like hot spots, black spots on the connectors.
After that you may have to take it some place and have it looked at, I know how to take the top of the motor and check things there but not sure how to tell someone else to do it and be carefull of a couple of springs.
But you have some kind of short, after a period of time it gets hot and looses contact and the motor stops, cools off and starts back up again.
Check all visible connections for corrosion and tightness.
Good Luck
Look under the pedal and check all the connections, to make sure there is no corrosion and they are tight. Also check for what might look like black spots on the connectors.
You have some kind of short, after a period of time the motor gets hot. It is probably thermally protected, once it cools down the thermal OL resets itself.
It is possible the motor itself is shorting, you will need a new trolling motor, SORRY