we took the whole trolling motor apart. that's just because we are men and wanted to see what made it tick and since we didn't know if we could fix it or not, what's a better opportunity. took a real big crowbar ad stuck it in the shaft, then wrapped it around a telephone pole with him pulling on one end and me on the other. i'm 6'3 240# he's 5'8 165# so you can imagine how that went. then once we figured out that we really could fix it we started arguing about how it went back together since neither of us paid attention (remember we didnt think we could fix it). finally 2 1/2 hours later we got it back together and went to the lake only to find out then then the tension on cables were WAY loose. tore it aprt on the lake again and got that fixed. basically the moral to the story is, save the trouble and take peter's advice, not mine lol.