Was out Tuesday and wanted to swing out and around an approaching boat, so I ramped my MK 80 up to max and pulled out and around the approaching boat (fishing the same bank I was on, opposite direction). After a couple of mins, TM went dead. As I looked at the head, I saw a very small wisp of smoke. So back to the ramp (we were close to leaving anyway, late in the day). When I got home, I opened the TM head, knowing there was nothing really there. But upon inspection, I noticed what appeared to be a real hot spot in the two 10 gauge wires carrying power from the foot control down the shaft to the motor. There are two spade connectors that are crimped on and then covered with heat-shrink, so that the motor can be removed and separated from the foot control. This “hot spot” was right at the foot-control side of those two spade connectors and the insulation had sort of “merged”. I carefully cut this apart and found that the two spade connectors were apparently crimped on by an 800 pound gorilla. Looked old enough to be original, so I assume that to be true. Closer inspection showed quite a few of the strands of the 10 gauge wire were broken right at the crimp, apparently when the crimp was originally done. And apparently, running at max current level was enough to heat the wire at that point and melt the insulation, letting the conductors touch. I checked the wire everywhere I could see and it looked perfectly normal except for this one small spot. Cut the wires out, spliced them back, located the circuit breaker at the back of the boat and reset it, and all was well. Fished about 6 hours today with no further issue, and I even ran it at 100% for a bit to make sure everything worked normally.Anyone ever seen this or was it a pure fluke. This is a minn-kota maxxum 80. Was glad to see this was a no-cost break-down that was an easy diagnosis and fix.2008 Pantera Classic2014 Mercury Pro XS 200
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