Old Town PDL Drive Maintenance Tips for Sportsman, Predator, Topwater PDL Fishing Kayaks 

Thanks for the tips Ryan!!

I liked the puppy. The video was good too. :)

Yeah, I always washed down my PDL drive without fail, but recently I had an event where I got separated from my predator and I had to flip it a few times trying to get back in. I had thought it was upside down for around 20 mins, but on reviewing everything that happened, in the confusion of that day, I realised now, that it was right side up when they retrieved it, after I got separated from it, so really, it only got dunked a few times. It was working fine too, when we got everything back and I hadn't expected any issues as my understand was its sealed and has a 5 year warranty. Anyway, I had it in dry dock for around 4 weeks, but when I Picked it up to mount on my predator, I found it had locked up, pedal quite stiff. I was very surprised. I fired an email off to Old Town customer service, but at that point, I told them that I thought it was upside down for around 20 mins in the sea, and they said its not designed for that, so although its only two years old, its not covered by warranty. Not really that helpful to be honest, they sent me a pdf on how to open the prop assembly, but they had nothing available for disassembly of the upper pedal section. To compound things further, I am unfortunately based in Europe, with no distributer remotely near me either, so I am on my own, I am going to have to open it up and try sort it out myself. I am hoping it's just a cleanup/lubing job that's required, I can't really figure out, how it could jam up like that, but this is my first experience with OT Kayaks/PDL drives, so I guess I will have to learn when I have a go at it, next week.

Simple, short, sweet! Maintaining your equipment is a MUST if you want it to last a lifetime.

I thought Old Town Always Classified this as a Maintenance Free Drive . I love Old Town, and there Kayaks are Amzing , but I know that is what was Stated on there 2020 Predator and the Topwater 120 Pdl Vdeos put out by Old Town . P.S. Ryan and Old Town You are Doing Amazing Jobs with your All your new Kayaks and with your Marketing. Ryan is the Man , and Old Town is a Awsome Company 😎👍👍

What size are the thread for the pedals and do we ever have to lubricant the internals of the drive

Should you lube/spray off the rudder cables as well?

The PDL on a big water has some movement while peddling. How do I snug it down more?

Cool looking Topwater ! is that Solid Orange ?!?!?

Ryan. Any chance you could do a video to show hull design and length differences on pdl sportsman models? Use a metronome to have constant pedal speed at a lower speed that we can pedal forever and a emergency get out of the way short burst speed and maybe one 20%? Above the low speed? Thanks so much. It’s so hard to figure out if a longer one is significantly faster

That yellow topwater tho 👀

Nice tips - what's the best choice for a prop wrench? And where can you order spare shear pins (or are there generic options available at your local hardware store)? Thanks!

where can i send my drive if something breaks?

Where would i be able to purchase the gasket around the PDL drive?

where do we get those pins?

How do you remove the prop? Seriously, it’s like a “how to cook a steak video” that shows a raw steak and then says “after you cook it, this is what it looks like,”

You don’t have to grease it or tighten the chain?

Never heard it called a Prop pin before. Always referred to it as a Shear Pin but I guess Same Same.