This fix was 100% what I needed. I was frustrated as trim down and trailer worked but while showing the boat for sale, trim up did not work. After (needlessly) changing a solenoid, I watched this video and checked all the power lines, then as a last resort I cleaned the trim limit switch. Bingo, problem solved. THANK YOU SOO MUCH FOR THIS TUTORIAL. It saved my sanity and lots of money. Excellent video, really helped me.
It helped immensely indeed! thank you so much. I found this video for my husband. He was about to"donate" the boat to charity. He went straight to the trim sensor, sandpapered it and voila! You saved our boat!
I'm trying to fix the trim on a friends boat and have zero boating experience. Thank you so much for posting this. I at least have a really good starting point and 7:29 seconds ago I didn't even know where to start.
This was very helpful! Also be sure to check your trim sender and trim limit settings as well. Turns out the previous owners had theses set incorrectly leading to the exact same symptoms. Once the adjustments were made, everything worked like it should. Thanks again for posting this!
mvgwizz yup absolutely. That’s why I added in the comments about aligning those tic marks up. If those are off your trim adjustment will be all messed up. Great point thanks for the input.
Thank you so much. You solved my problem. I paper-sanded the contacts in the trim limit sensor and that's it! A lifesaver. Thank you, thank you so much.
WOW you di a great favor for so many of us with the same problem. I have a 1988 Caravelle Runabout I am trying to refurbish and YOU TUBE has been my go too a lot. Thanks for your great video!
David Grimes I have a 87 citation thunder craft and I’m getting it ready. I know nothing about boats basically. RU-vid is where I go to learn to. I need to hook all my wires to my battery. Bought boat unseen and the battery was removed. I don’t have a clue where those wires go except for the positive and negative cables. I have the mercruiser 120 hp.
OK thank your very much, I bought my boat few months ago & the trip up has never worked. I did what you said with some scotchbright & sandpaper & it works perfectly. It literally 😆was 10 minute job. I can’t say thank you enough. I’ve been using my trailer up to plane my bought. I sincerely thank you for this information. 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🍀✌️
Did you make sure you aligned the tick marks when you reassembled? If you don’t your shit will be all off. I forgot to say that part in the video. You will know what tick marks I’m talking about.
@@jhoff2488 I’ll look at it again. It’s nighttime here now but it’s easy to look at since it’s only 4 screws. Will the tick marks be on front or on back where the gear goes inside? Thank you
@@bobbypage4854 when your looking at the gear you will see a notch on it. The base you put it back into will also have a notch. At least mine did. What happened and how I knew was because my gauge would say my trim was 3/4 way up but my engine was only half way up. I didn’t have those notches lined up
Bayliner Capri right? Ask me how i know LOL. Mine is stuck in up position. I do hear clicking when i push the up and down trim buttons. The guy i bought it from had it all the way up and probably bottomed it out. Now it's stuck in up position. I need to get down to change the gimble bearing etc. Boat has sat for about three years. It does start now after draining fuel. But bearing is so loud I can't tune it. I will try some these other tips you have showed us. Wish me luck. And Thanks for taking the time for the vid.
Randy Whatley good luck. Sounds like a project. Sounds scary but push the down button and have someone put some weight on the motor. See if that breaks it. Sometimes it gets stuck if it sat for a long time.
@@kundrew1990 with this I believe there is an electrical issue somewhere. For some reason your voltage is dropping when you hit the trim button. Causing your engine to stall. Let me ask you this. Your trim pump, does the wiring go directly to your battery? Both positive and ground wire? Or is it harness and branched through the rest of the engines wiring?
On a older boat most of the time if you can trim down and trailer up and not trim down . Then the trim limit wires are broken!!!! Look at your wires 1st … those wires are like light extension cord wire and they disintegrate after time
Hey thank you very much this helped a lot I it was out on the Lake cook figure out what my problem was turns out my down cylon oi'd is badd so I just switched wires to wear up was down and down is up and I was at least able to get my drive to go to the down position thanks again
Jordan, you may have fixed your boat and helped some other (Congrats and thanks) but your provided some incomplete and some wrong information so please accept this as a helpful correction since we are all in this to make boating more pleasurable. First, a fuse is rated in Amps, not Volts. so its a 20A fuse. Next the TRIM SENDER you mention does not send any signal back to control the system. Its like a dimmer switch for your lights. It's a potentiometer, It's the sending unit for your trim gauge. To dial your gauge in. Put your drive all the way down. Turn ignition on, loosen but do not remove the screws. Have someone watch gauge. As you rotate the sender in the slots the needle will move. Set it so the needle is all the way down and tighten the screws. As your correctly stated the one on the port side is your TRIM LIMIT. It's role is to prevent you from lifting your drive while the engine is running past a point where there drive has lateral stability. Based on your type of drive (Alpha One Gen 2, Bravo One, Bravo two etc) Mercruiser provides a measurement. The measurement is from the center of the rear trim cylinder studs to the center of the front ones. Again you loosen the screws and rotate the switch until it turns off the pump at the correct measurement. While you may get corrosion inside, if you do make sure you seal it because it should be water tight. You may also have a bad switch, or a misadjusted one. If the switch is calibrated to the up position when the drive is down, it will not go up using trim (only trailer) Lastly, some systems have relays (one up and one down) which could go bad. They are the same so you can swap them and see if problem follows the relay. Hope it helps!!
Bob Kelley thank you. Will use this and move forward to improve. Keep in mind this video is a year old. I have learned much more since then. I was tracking water sealed tight but didn’t mention it in the video. I also forgot to mention when placing it back together to align the tic marks up properly. All about growing and getting better based on feedback like yours. Much appreciated.
Jordan, thank you for sharing your experience. You took constructive criticism very well. Great job! Mr. Kelly, thank you for adding your opinions and expertise. We benefited greatly from both! Very grateful for your time!
When I took my boat out of the lake this year the merccruiser outdrive would not raise up. After many pushes on the UP button it elevated enough to get the boat home. I know nothing about tilt drives so looked up RU-vid videos and found this and other helpful videos. I though that cleaning the Tilt Limit on the outdrive might help. I cleaned the terminals on the Tilt Limit. Had to take it apart several times as the first time I did not realise that I had to pry out the insert to clean behind it. After that the UP drive button worked consistently, but the motor was already raised and the DOWN button did not do anything. I mistakenly thought that cleaning the Trim Sensor would help but then realized it just affects the dash Trim dial. I could not locate the marks to put the insert back correctly so by trial and error just rotated the insert until the dash dial was in the correct up position. The DOWN button was still not working so I though I woulkd replace the DOWN solenoid. I ordered the solenoid and it arrived in two days. It was a more difficlut job than expected because the nuts were small and hard to get at, however I eventually go the old one off and replaced it with the new one. The nuts on the new solenid were smaller and so I used the old larger nuts as they were easier to tighten. The most difficult nut was the back one holding the solenoid in place. I had to use a flexible wrench extension, but that worked. I could not replace the plastic cover over the solenoid terminals as I could not easily locate the small screw position. Next spring I will put a nail in the screw hole, tape the cover to the solenoids then try to reintroduce the screw. The DOWN button now works perfectly. I am concerned that I should have replaced the UP solenoid as well.
Please come over to my house as my trim will not go down! The system buzzes like it is trying to go, but it just will not move. The boat is very clean and now I'm thinking it's the Tilt Limit on the outdrive. Hell I dunno. Maybe it is the down solenoid that's failed. The Sea RAY has a bench seat for the back passengers, so it's a real job to get back into the corner.
@@jameskelly956 take a set of pliers. Make sure your battery is hooked up. Touch the main power and the power to the down solenoid at the same time with the pliers. Let me know what the outcome was.
If the motor (buzzes) works then the solenoid is probably OK. The easiest thing to do is to clean the terminals of the TILT LIMIT on the outdrive. @@jameskelly956
Great video thanks for posting it. I ended up having to replace both solenoids but had to remove entire trim motor to do it. when I removed to hydraulic lines from the motor (which was stuck in up position) lowered its self. Well I got the trim motor fixed and reinstalled it. Now the trim gauge will not follow the motor movement (its still in the full up position) do you have any suggestions on how to remedy this?
Roderick Jones in the video I talk about the trim sender. The trim sender is responsible for the gauge. Starboard side of engine. Take that bad boy apart clean it out and put back together. Clean the brass connectors very lightly. Let me know if that works.
Hey Jordan, great video! I followed all of your steps in the video...no luck. My trim goes down, but won't go up. I don't hear any clicking when attempting to trim up. The solenoids were replaced 3 months ago, and the boat was working fine a week ago. I tested the up trim power and get 12 volts, so it is getting a signal from the throttle to the pump. Anything I might be missing? Appreciate your time!
Do me a favor. Open a set up pliers up touch the main power to the pump unit and the blue input to your up solenoid. Let me know if the unit goes up. Your bypassing the solenoid by doing this. May be tiny spark. Make sure battery terminals are hooked up.
@@jhoff2488 Hey Jordan! Sorry for the delay, but I finally got back around to working on the boat. I executed your trick today and definitely got that spark, but it definitely initiated the trim to go up. The spark was actually pretty large so I only tested it for a second. I have been using jumper cables to bypass the solenoid as well to get the trim up for trailering. So possibly the new solenoid (like 4 months old) is already bad? Another note is that my throttle does not have a trailer button to test. Do you happen to have any other tips or tricks? I inspected the trim limit and it looks new (no corrosion). Thanks again!
@@goldbeck09 you need to look for your trailer button, trim up only work for the first 5% of travel (if setup correctly), there is a trailer button or you press the up deeper and it overrides it for trailering-
I changed both limit and sender and my up still dont work What do u recommend to look at ? My trim goes down and trailer goes up but the up doesnt work.
Sorry just saw this. If you checked everything I did in the video try this. 1. Open your trim limit gauge on your out drive. There should be two tiny tiny tick marks for you to make sure they are aligned. Make sure they are if those two marks are not aligned your trim limit is all messed up. 2. Make sure solenoids are free of corrosion 3. Usually not the case, but your actual switch on your handle could be bad. Number 1 would be my guess if you didn’t know about aligning those two marks.
My question here is that if you press the trim button either down or up, and you hear the pump running....then the solenoids are fine? My trim switch is operating the trim pump, but not getting any lowering or raising action.
Yes I would say so. Yours doesn’t sound electrical more so mechanical. Have you inspected the hydraulic oil? Have you inspected the trim cylinders to make sure their are no leaks?
@@jhoff2488 Hi Jordan, thanks for your fast reply! I narrowed it down to the 2 actuators; they were both frozen solid. So I pulled them off and I managed to persuade them back to a new normal for them. I think it took me about 6 hours to diagnose and do a driveway refurb on those things...I don't know how many times I got blasted with a stream of oil from those things.
@@michaelking42 figured it was mechanic and not electrical. Yeah man sorry my video didn’t talk mechanical. At least my video ruled out it was the pump lol
My one was working fine until I unscrew the motor to clean the oil reservoir, now all I hear is clicking up and down , i think my first step will be selonoid ..
Hey there I have a quick question about R mer cruiser it seems to want to spit and sputter when we get it out on the water somewhere around 15 to 20 miles per hour and also when we shut the key off to kill the engine it takes a while for it to die can you please maybe give us some suggestions about what might be the problem
A Shephard 100 percent a fuel flow problem. Either dirty carb or fuel filter can get clogged. Easy that may fix the problem go buy some seafoam when your gas tank is nearly empty. Use about half the bottle of seafoam and let the engine run for about 20 minutes. Let the seam foam clean up the carb, plugs and cylinder. See if that works. If it doesn’t replace fuel filter and clean out the carb by hand. But for sure your engine is suffocating from no fuel. Now when you shut it off mine does that sometimes part of carburetor. Mine will stay on for about 10-15 seconds then shut off. So normal.
Yup. It’s the way your putting the sensor back on. Look up a video on taking it apart. There are some marks you need to make sure they are aligned. Your sensor the way you placed it was over rotated. It thinks you are all the way down. Look on the part I think on the tiny little wheel. You will see a tiny mark. That needs to be lined up when putting it back in with the Mark that’s on the base plate. Hard to explain with words. But there is another video on taking that thing off and the guy mentions it.
@@jhoff2488 Thanks. The tiny marks are aligned. We’ve tried rotating the sensor. The next step will be releasing the trim all the way down then placing the sensor back in. I’ve worked on several Mercruiser trim units and this has never happened. Weirdest thing ever.
OK, yeah, that is really weird. But I think you have a good idea by releasing the trim all the way down line up those marks again it may recalibrate I guess. Does it stop halfway when going up for you to continue the rest of it with trailer or will the up take it all the way to the very top? Because if the office taking it all the way to the very top, it Hass to be a calibration issue.
@@jhoff2488 Thanks. We got it to stop half way up and then all the way to top when trying to adjust. Both ways, when trimming down, the trim stops short, same place. It got dark so we will try again tomorrow. I’ve read some blogs where people have pushed down on the trim while trimming down and that it fixed problem. We will give it a shot tomorrow.
@@rickc9873 touch with screw driver main power on down solenoid and your main power that connects both solenoids (like jumping a starter solenoid). It should move down. If it does. Bad solenoid. Does this make sense?
When I press the down position sometimes there is a pause before it works... if it didn't work it clicks. I can hear a click sound in the back by the engine. Any ideas of what that would be?
stepfour clean terminal connector that runs to your battery. And clean all connectors to your pump unit including main power. Make sure they are all tight. If no fix then change the green grass down relay and get a new one. One of these will do the fix.
Thank you for video. Do you have any input as to why mine was working perfectly fine , next day I went to check it before leaving to ramp and it is completely dead,. It acts like there is no power to it. Thank you in advance for your time.
check the trim limit sensor. our boat was doing the same as yours. it was not really rusted, but the copper contacts were dark brown. My husband sandpapered it, and done. the problem is on the left sensor.
@@anabarbero502 thank you so much for your time and reply. I did check the contacts and even though, they looked clean and went ahead and sanded a little. Unfortunately did not solve problem. it seems and electrical/ground issue from the throttle switch to the motor. I run a direct cable from the positive side on the battery to the up and down and it worked.
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A Shephard most likely blower motor went out. Really easy fix. They are very cheap (cost and durability). If you need a video find me on FB and PM me and I will help ya out.
The typical person that finds the negative that somebody does and publicizes it. Hope you feel better. I know I said the word too much. It’s a filler word I use when im on the spot. Have a nice day dude!
@@jhoff2488 meant no disrespect. Your video answered my question very well. I just had a hard time listening with all the oks. Just consider criticism for you to work on. Have a nice day.
Fair. When you read past comments it was already brought up multiple times. I have videos on different things and I fixed the okay filler…..for the most part. Thanks for the response tho.
