It is always something with one of the boats. haha. We went out on Friday for some fishing and cruising. Day went pretty well but we only caught trash fish. Anyways while we were fishing the final time I had trimmed the motor up to prevent any tangle ups. We got ready to leave and I started lowering the motor and it stopped going down. Tried again. Nothing. Tried the cowl switch. Nothing. The motor was down enough to allow us to drive back but not able to get up on plane. So it was a slow trip back to the ramp but we made it. Got it on the trailer and up the ramp. Took a while to get the manual release to unscrew so we could lift the motor. So no control from either switch. I checked for voltage at the bullet connections to the trim motor and it is getting voltage when the switch is pressed but not raising or lowering the motor. Is there anything else I should check or should I just go ahead and replace the trim motor? Motor is a 1997 Mercury 90hp 3 cyl. 2 stroke. Trim motor part number is 809885 A1, I think. Thanks for any suggestions.
When you hit the Trim switch, do you hear a clicking sound or silence?
Key West 19’6" CC 115hp Merc
14’ Fast Craft w/ 60hp Merc
silence
You need to trace your power supply. Start at the trim motor harness and work your way back. Could be a loose/broken connection, bad switch, etc. Hopefully nothing more serious…
Key West 19’6" CC 115hp Merc
14’ Fast Craft w/ 60hp Merc
Yep, what pitviper said! Don’t start replacing parts yet! So many people start replacing parts at the end of the line which is the most expensive part. Start on the cheap side and work your way up in $$$$. You can’t return most electrical parts.
if the green and blue wire is getting power at the bullet connector when you press the trim switch…
you have completed all the diagnostic you can do.
you have a bad trim motor.
those bullet connectors are on the motor side of the relay
to be sure, you could unplug the bullet connectors and on the trim motor side of the connectors, put positive to one wire and negative to the other, and if the motor is good, it will move up or down, depending on which wire you connected to positive
- to green and - to blue it should go down.
reverse and it will go up
Well I tried the direct connect from the trim motor to the battery and got nothing, so I figured it was done. I kept playing around with it and cleaned all the connections again and what do you know…its working now. Not sure what fixed it this time since I just cleaned it all on Sunday when I was working on it. Hopefully it will keep working next time I get on the water. Thanks for the help guys.
Get some dielectric grease and put it on the connectors!http://www.etrailer.com/Accessories-and-Parts/LubriMatic/11755.html
pitviper what does the clicking sound mean? my yamaha 90 2-stroke was making a clicking sound when i trim down from being trimmed up @ wide open throttle, definitely didn’t sound healthy although it never seemed to hurt anything. I was thinking it might be low on oil in the trim system, so I topped it off & now it stopped doing it. just curious really if that was the sound of air in the lines or something
Be careful asking for help, you’ll be accused of being lazy.
“Apathy is the Glove in Which Evil Slips It’s Hand”.
From my experience, especially with Mercury motors that I have, the trim switch runs to the starter solenoid. The clicking you hear is the solenoid energizing.
Key West 19’6" CC 115hp Merc
14’ Fast Craft w/ 60hp Merc
What’s wrong with being lazy? Saves a lot of effort for the important stuff, like opening beer! You should never rush into things. Open a beer and sit down and study the problem. You may run out of beer if it’s a hard problem!
Be careful trim motor started doing same thing one day but after afew
tries it started working again. next day right after leaving the landing went to trim motor down, it went just a little an quit again.
got back to landing and checked ever thing that I had done the first
time it started.
Found a crack in back of trim motor you couldn’t see it until you pulled the motor.
justretired; do you have any idea what caused the crack? I can see something wearing out, going dry, or corroding, but to just crack, I have a problem with! Must have been some sort of alignment stress or something?