Ideas Needed Mounting Trolling Motor

Have a Minn-Kota quick release bracket for my Carolina Skiff. I have the puck mounted, but I can barely reach the bolts on underside of deck to get nuts/washers started. I misjudged and thought I'd have no problem getting my arm to them. I keep dropping the washer/nut because I'm stretched to the max, and I can't see while I'm doing it. Any tricks? Only thing I can think of is rig up an extension to a wrench and maybe put a dab of glue on the washer to hold to nut. Or, find a small child to climb in there! lol

Get you a metal plate around 1/4 in thick or a little thicker, about 6 inches longer than that mount. Put that mount at the end, drill your holes through the plate to match. On those holes use a drill bit larger than the holes and counter sink them. Get you 4 screws with the countersink heads and run them from bottom up. Mount puck then align entire bracket and drill holes you can reach.

Ha Ha , I used a small child.

I used a 24” breaker bar to reach the forward bolts on my trolling motor. Used a couple tiny drops of hot glue to hold the but and fender washer in the socket. I had someone with a cordless drill and Phillips head on the top side and once I got the bit in place had them very slowly start to drive the bolt until it caught, then they snugged it up while I held the breaker bad through the tiny hole in the bow.

It only took 20 minutes to get all 8 bolts secured, took me a while to come up with a plan to get to the bolts without making the hole bigger.

:hesaid

These worked for me..and held up well you can get at academy/amaz/ebay/and shttps://www.trollingmotors.net/products/no-access-bolting-quick-nut

Harbor freight has needle nose pliers a foot long cheap that works good to reach the bolts


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My boat has a TM mounting thing welded into the body, so my install was straightforward, but I am using the same QR mount as you. One idea I had was to try the nut-sert or nut rivets, but I don't think those are strong enough to hold a heavy TM in rough water. If you could make a plate and tap/thread the holes, you could put all 4 bolts in the plate and guide it up from the bottom, then use nuts on top.
Attachment 340907

Sounds like a pair of vice grips taped to a broom handle may be what you need.

Good idea on the broom handle , I never thought of that good one


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Snap toggle from Lowe's.
And loctite. Thank me later

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Atimm693

Sounds like a pair of vice grips taped to a broom handle may be what you need.

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I didn't even think about vise grips taped to something like a broom handle. I got frustrated the other day and wasn't thinking clearly lol.

So how you gonna reach em to release the grip...


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by joekiller

So how you gonna reach em to release the grip...


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I can reach the bolts but not good enough to get a washer and nut started. I could more than likely reach a 8 inch pair of vise grips to release.

I got it mounted. Super glued the washers to the nuts, taped a 7/16 wrench to my breaker bar, and my daughter tightened from the top. Worked like a charm, thanks for all the ideas.

SUCCESS !!!!!!!