FYI Ulterra

I had another issue I thought I would warn about with my Ulterra. Yesterday I had a cattail reed wrap around the shaft while trolling. I stowed the motor to make a move and I saw it after the motor came up. It was laying across the top of the shaft. I made my move and deployed the motor. I had forgotten about the reed, and the motor deployed fine and worked as it should. When I tried to stow the motor it trimmed up, but when it attempted to tilt back it gave an error. I looked and saw the weed jammed between the side of the locking plate and the frame. It wouldn’t allow for it to unlock. I pulled pulled the black plastic cap off to manually stow, but it still wouldn’t release. I drove back to the dock with the motor trimmed up and was able from the dock clear the debris out and get the lock to release. Be aware that the tolerances on the motor are really tight and any debris can lodge in there and cause a failure, so to be safe glance at the motor before deploying it to save you a bit of a headache.

In every case so far I’ve been able to use the trim or stow/deploy buttons on the remote or the pedal to remedy this. I haven’t had to stow it manually once in two years of pretty regular fishing. Consider trying the remote or pedal to next time before you manually stow.

I tried to stow it a half dozen times after trying to pull out as much of the obstruction while on the water with the remote. It wouldn’t move. Just got an error. Even on the dock it was an issue getting the lock to release. I think it tweaked the metal just enough to not allow the lock to lift up with the remote. I just bent it a little to square it up and it seemed to work fine. I like the motor, I am just trying to save someone the headache.

Hey a little bit off topic but your active here mojogunter when you broke that black piece on the screw drive motor. Did you have to do anything after you replaced it? I had one of those screws come close and put those metal pieces in a bind and popped that black piece out I have a contest tomorrow so I hope I can just to the reset.

If it is out of adjustment you may have to pull that plate off manually deploy it then screw the black plastic piece out and put it back together and then hit stow so it is adjusted right. If the reset doesn’t work. That is what I did Thursday. Reset may work though. I don’t know for sure.