Moisture in boat lift motor

[Janice L Moss-BROWN]

My automatic boat lift fell off the arm of the lift into the water. Amazingly, we let the motor dry out and it worked. We had to reattached and it was working fine and now it is tripping and shutting off on the down mode after about a second. We are assuming it has found moisture, since it had fallen in the water. Is there any hope that this will dry out? Should we wait? Should we buy a new motor? Have we ruined something else such as the electrical to the house?

[gfretwell]

You may still have water in it and if this was salt water, there may be dried salt in there that reacts with the humidity. Taking the end cap off, flushing it with WD40 may help but you may end up buying bearings before it is all over.

[dpb]

How long a wait and what kind of water and how long was it in the water? How long has it been working since? (So many questions, so little data... :) )

All sorts of possibilities as to the cause depending on what actually happened. Sounds like not a lot of "hands-on" experience there, I'd suggest taking it to a local motor shop and having them evaluate it for repair vis a vis replacement _if_ it was clean water and didn't sit on the bottom for a week or more before you found out about or the like...otherwise, I'd guess it's not _that_ big a motor, probably just go ahead and replace it and make sure the new one is secure. :)

And no, this will have no affect on any other wiring or the like as long as it was installed correctly and the wiring to it is adequate for the purpose and was also installed at minimum requirements per NEC.

[trader_4]

+1 Especially on the salt water. If it was salt water and it was not flushed, I would do that now. Then leave it outside, well ventilated to dry out for a few days. Turning it occasionally might be a good idea too.

+1

Unless they fouled up some wiring while removing and re-attaching it.