12 VOLT TRIM TAB TROUBLE

[CULTURED REDNECK]

MY TRIM TAB DECIDED TO OPERATE IN ONLY ONE DIRECTION THIS WEEKEND, DOWN... WHAT A DRAG, HUH? I THOUGHT IT WAS THE SWITCH, SO I REMOVED IT AND WHEN I BY PASSED THE SWITCH, THE MOTOR OPERATED JUST FINE. I CLEANED THE TERMINALS WITH A WIRE BRUSH, REINSTALLED THE SWITCH AND I WAS BACK IN BUSINESS. THE NEXT DAY, SAME STUFF HAPPENED AGAIN, BUT THIS TIME THE OLD BYPASS THE SWITCH ROUTINE DID NOT WORK. I EVEN CUT THE WIRE SIX INCHES FROM THE MOTOR AND PUT CURRENT TO IT. THE "DOWN" WIRE MADE AN ARC, BUT THE "UP" WIRE DID NOT ARC AT ALL, NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH... MABEY A GROUND PROBLEM, MABEY JUST JAMBED?? ANY SUGGESTIONS WOULD BE APPRECIATED!!!

 

[Des Moines Boater]

They have new singles on Ebay for $159 at a place in Hollywood, Florida. Last year airboatcapt2 was selling them for a pretty low price according to the posts. You had to PM him for a price. I don't know how much he sold them for, so, PM him first.

Saw one for $129 at River Marine in Miami.

 

[goldhunter_2]

I had the same problem and every time it happened it was my ground wire , run the ground wire straight back to the battery or clean a re-tighten each time you have troubles

 

[CULTURED REDNECK]

GROUND WIRE! YOU ARE CORRECT SIR... CLEANING FIXED IT LAST TIME AND I REALLY LIKE THE IDEA OF GOING DIRECTLY TO THE BATTERY WITH THE GROUND WIRE. THANKS MUCH!
YOUR PAL,
JOSH

 

[Whitebear]

This ground wire thing is the exact reason I made such an issure of bonding every structure on the airboat to ground. If ya keep running a separate wire to the battery sooner or later you wont have room on the battery for the big negative cable.

You can use some large coax cable braid with lugs on each end to bond each piece to the adjacent piece. Id venture to say you arent running any radios/intercoms or I would expect to hear complaints of noise in the radios as well. Even when bolted multiple times, each piece in a car is bonded separately.

Scotty :wink:

 

[goldhunter_2]

ya I don't like a ton of wires run back to the battery but normally don't like ground wires to any metal on the boat hat just causes problems at least it does for me. I normally just run one main ground wire form the battery to the console then just hook all my grounds to that main wire