No downward trim on 90hp Merc

D

DuckDogTitus

New member
Up works great, but when I hit down, I just hear "click" with no movement. Woke up to this Sunday morning, but was able to release manually and stay on the water for another 8hrs despite 8)

but now real life is back and I need to get this fixed so I can be back out next weekend.

Switch seems to be fine.
Fuses are good.
All wires and everything under the cowl look amazing and new (the previous owner was really great to this boat).
Googling tells me its probably

a. a bad relay
b. a bad trim motor

since it works up and not down, I'm tempted to believe the trim motor is good and a relay is bad. I believe there are three relays on the 2004 90hp mercury? How do I know

a. which one to check
b. how to tell if its bad?

again, trims up as normal, but when I trim down with remote or on the unit, i just hear "click". so its trying but something is failing.

Gracias mi amigos.
 
Dustin, it sounds like the down trim solenoid. The manual I included with the boat has electrical diagrams in the back of it, and will show which solenoid controls the trim motor. It should not be the trim motor, since it runs in the up direction. One thing you can try is to tap on the solenoid with a screwdriver handle end with the switch depressed. Sometimes that will help make a connection that is corroded. Another thing you might try is to make a short jumper wire and jump a 12 volt feed to the output of the solenoid to see if the trim motor runs. Very rarely will the motor run in one direction, and not the other -- that would be due to the brushes being worn and not seating well on the trim motor. The solenoids have very short stiff wires that connect them, so they are not easy to manage. If you start working around that area make sure to disconnect the battery hot so you do not inadvertently short something out. Sorry about the trim problem....glad you are getting good use from the boat. Ron
 
I almost emailed you because I know you know the inner workings of this motor better than most mercury employees would, but I didn't want to bug you, and I suspected you'd find my post here! ;)

Thanks for the tip. I have a number of pages book marked in the manual and I did see some electrical diagrams that show a relay, I just wasn't sure which one because there are three side by side and if I recall the conductor jacket colors were different going into the relay than when they left the switch. however, i was upside down in the splashwell trying to stay dry while working on my coffee and bakery treat while troubleshooting, so I'll check it again tonight.

I noticed one other time it wouldn't go down, so I clicked it up for a second, then tried down and it engaged as normal. I assumed from that experience that there is probably just a loose connection/bad solenoid. thanks for the jumper wire suggestion too. I wanted to do that, but was hesitant. I was hesitant to release the trim manually, in the water, for the first time too! but it worked just fine.


The boat's been fantastic! I think we've had it 5 weeks, taken it out 6 times, spent 9 days on the water, 3 overnights, and caught fish in both fresh and salt water. she's getting used! my wife and I have hosted my brother, a buddy, my father, another friend of hers twice, and now we've had our little boy on it as well. we've stayed at three different marinas and summer is only just beginning :)

I'll tinker with it more tonight and update-
 
Dustin
What year and type Merc do you have? I have a Seloc repair manual that covers 1990- 2000, 2.5-275hp Merc 2 strokes. It's yours if you want and can use.
 
I appreciate that Spike, I actually have the full manuals for the motors already though (with many bookmarks now lol). last night was golf league so I didn't get home till late, but I'll be able to spend more time troubleshooting tonight.
 
finally got a chance to tinker today.

after a lot of thinking, and pondering, and musing and reading and rereading of the manual and studying the diagram and pondering and musing and thinking some more, I pulled out the DMM and thought and mused, then I made my jumper wire, and cautiously figured out where I 'think' it should go, and with the down trim button depressed, and my jumper wire cautiously in place........

the motor went down. :mrgreen:


can you guys tell me if there is something special about this relay though before I go out and replace it with something inadequate? on the internet people talk about just picking up relays at an auto parts store for $6. I'm OK with a $100 merc one for all I care, I just want the right thing and the $6 auto parts store relay is 5 minutes away vs 5 days.
 
Hi Dustin. I send you an email wondering about your progress, and included a photo of my latest project. I then went looking to see if you had posted anything on the down tilt. Low and behold, the jumper told the story. Good.. I would bite the bullet and put in correct parts. They fit, and are "explosion proof" for dealing with potential vapors, etc. if you can not find the part locally, you can usually get parts from boats.net fairly quickly. Good luck on the boat. Take care. Ron
 
So the new relay arrived this week, finally got a chance to install it this morning and... click. same thing as before. Motor trims up just fine, but I just hear "click" on the down trim. both at the motor and remote.

if you take a look at the below image, the lower relay is the down trim, the next one up is the up trim, and above that is the starter solenoid.

the blue and green wires going to "32" are going to the trim motor.

I physically wired the blue 32 to the lower relay and the green 32 to the up relay to see what would happen. the motor trims down now, as it should, but when I push the up button I just hear "click".



relays_zpseceec254.jpg



what options does that leave? I'm thinking it means I either received a bad new relay, or there is an issue possibly with one of the ground wires on the lower relay? the reason I say ground wires is because the hot wire is right in front of me and less than 3" long.

what I know is;

green wire to trim motor from relay works
power from switches to up trim relay works
nothing leaves the lower trim relay.
 
it occurred to me it probably can't be the ground since they are linked together and the up trim works fine. so anything other than another bad relay? how do I test the relay?
 
Perhaps you should try to trace the green wire and see if there is a break in it or another connector that is corroded or not mating effectively. Seems like it is the culprit. Ron
 
I am curious how many wires are on the tilt motor, 2 or 3?
Usually you have to flip flop both the hot and ground to change directions on a dc motor.
if that is the case, then both relays may come into play for the directional change. So a problem in either relay could cause a problem.
Jerry C Nile CD 22
 
when I get home I'll pull out the manual again but I believe its JUST the green and blue that feed into the trim motor. When I switched the blue and green on the relays, I suddenly had a down trim back. but my up trim then stopped working. thats why I thought maybe the new relay was bad.
 
so the culprit was indeed a bad relay... but it was the UP relay that went out causing me to lose my DOWN trim :disgust

we're fully operational and ready for a 4-day holiday on the water now!
 
thanks Ron!
that motor is so nice though I actually enjoyed dinking around in it. I do harnesses for a living so it was nice to see the parts I actually build every day in a good clean application and well used, haha.

Happy 4th to you all as well :)
 
Back
Top