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Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

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Stuck motor mount

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FrankV
Navigator

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USA
135 Posts

Initially Posted - 06/22/2025 : 11:22:38

We moved the boat, and I put it on the highest notch. Now, it will not move. It will wiggle out of the starboard hole, but the port hole is locked. I can see no extra metal there, no locking tab, etc but we cannot get it to budge. Any ideas?

Frank Vaughan
250 WK/SR

OLarryR
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
3459 Posts

Response Posted - 06/22/2025 : 21:25:40

I am not familiar with your motor mount. I have a Garhauer bracket mount that has 4 springs and I have a Honda 9.9hp outboard on it. The Garhauer bracket has 3 positions - The full up and two lower positions. I rarely have an issue with the motor mount but years ago, when I was docked in another marina, I occasionally had sticking or extremely hard dis-engaging and up/down moving of the bracket. This was almost always caused as a result of docking my boat in the slip and the outboard brushing the side of the finger slip causing some mis-alignment of the bracket.

For me what worked was to use a SS or aluminum pipe/tube or a crowbar and use it to "gently" coax the bracket rails back into alignment. I am not recommending bending the metal guide/support rails but I placed the small diameter pipe inside the handle support and tried to gently twist/re-align it. I also used some teflon spray on the bracket hinges/moving parts and along the side rail slots. When I used the pipe to re-align, I would only try it a very little bit and then see if the up and down movement of the bracket improved. If there was some improvement, then I tried the same adjustment some more. You can also use a pipe on the handle to free one of the side rails out of the stuck slot it is in but addl coaxing needed since it is doubtful getting it out of the slot alone will restore smooth bracket movement - It is the re-aligning the rails by using the pipe to gently twist the handle that solved the issue. I did this by inserting the pipe thru/past the handle and rested the pipe above or below one of the side rails. then by applying some force to the pipe, it would twist the handle a bit and also was applying some force to one of the side rails, so that both side rails will travel easily up and down and will once again engage the upper and lower slot positions together.

Hard to exactly explain the motion needed but when this has occurred. the use of a small diameter pipe and either teflon spray or grease completely resolved the issue, until the next time I brushed the outboard against the finger slip. For some reason, I rarely have this issue since I moved the boat to a different marina, though, I still dock boat on same side.

Larry
'89 Robin's Nest#5820, Potomac River/Quantico, Va
http://catalina25.homestead.com/olarryr.html

Edited by - OLarryR on 06/22/2025 21:43:47

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The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.