Once again, I'm patching up my old Minn Kota 65, 28 lbs of thrust. This was made back around 1985, so it has a lot of miles on it. When I got it with our old Jon boat, it looked like it had been dropped on it's top, and a bunch of glue was poured into cracks. The two front screws had nothing to screw into, chunks were missing out of the cover around the edge, and the FWD-REV switch was bad.
I found an exact replacement for the switch at Walmart, popped it in, and used it like it was. I really didn't expect it to last for the better part of 2 years, as hard as we run it. But it did :-) . The aluminum mount was broken, so I welded it and built it up in the corners a bit, and mounted it to the boat. I modified the mount so I could pull a single pin, and lift the motor off the boat without having to bother with the clamp bolts on the transom. I also installed a quick connect to the power leads, and fabricated a weed guard to help keep stuff from getting wrapped around the prop shaft. Despite how it looked, it held up pretty good.
Recently, I decided to take the cover off and try to repair / clean it up a bit. I sanded the old glue down, filled a bunch of holes and places where chunks were broken out, and installed a bit of wood to allow the front screws somewhere to attach. I also beefed up a few of the smaller wires that were overheating when I'd make a 2+ mile run at full throttle to get back to the landings. Here's a few pics of my now Black Special Edition Minn Kota 65 :-)
The above 2 pics were after the work...
Filling and sanding the cover a bit...
Lots of cracks to repair...
The cover looked pretty bad from the outside...
Forming up around the edges before filling and shaping. Also, I added a hardwood block, then drilled it fro the screws to attach to from below.
