Cannon Unitrolls Creak..how to fix

[Sea Lion]

Hi,

This sounds like a strange request but my two cannon downriggers with 6' booms creak and I can't for the life of me figure out the sweet spot that is causing the noise. I have 12 lb cannon balls on the riggers. The creak I'm sure is telegraphed via the cable to the fish (at least that is my OCD telling me!) Any suggestions on this. Both port and starboard are making the same noise. Again these are ancient Unitrolls that are manual!

Thanks,

Bob Lyons

[PolarBear]

same thing happened to me last week on a friends boat , he has 4 unitrolls and and 2 of the 4 spools split ......cost is 21.00 to rebuild them with the new spools , clutch bushings , and bearings .....the spools are redesigned

[ray koziatek]

creaked ,cracked all the same ya talkin cable hum,,,,is the creak happening when you move ? could be you!!

man ya should be able to isolate it with hand pressure ant like their are more than 5 moving parts..even tho yer mounting screws seem tight on top maybe their is some play under the gunnal where the nuts are,,,have ya checked yer nuts latly?

[ray koziatek]

Also check yer speed maybe yer runnin to slow and yer attracting old fish and the creakin is commin from the balls up.

[Big Dave]

Might be where they move that little bit on the bases with the wave action. With the tension of the weight and the6' booms thats a lot of leverage on the bases.

[Sea Lion]

Thanks for the replies...Ray I have to say I had a good laugh with yours. This is not a new phenomenon but maybe I'm getting cranky at 52. I did have this problem and wound up replacing the clutch bushings and it seemed to have helped but maybe only coincidentally. Driving me nuts while on the boat obsessing that it is scaring the fish away. Anyhow I think Dave you have a great point. While trolling deep I can see some daylight on the swivel bases where it connects to the rigger base and maybe a shot of wd -40 may help in there but yes there is a lot of stress on them. Always something. Appreciate the input.

[Sea Lion]

Hi Guys,

Well it wasn't a split spool but it was taking the bolts out that hold the swivel bases to the gunnel and adding in rubber washers and then really tightening down. The other thing was I had installed an aluminum "strap" that goes through two bolts on the base and then attaches to the side of the boat. One of these had split in half so I replaced and again added more rubber washers to where it connected to the boat and voila!!

Run silent and run deep! Again thanks for the assist.

Bob

[ray koziatek]

i figured yer nuts were saggin common phenonum with old age,and wear of course...