power tilt not holding?????????

[Ridgerunnr]

buddies boat has a prob...When he runs the motor up to full tils to load the boat it will not hold. It will drop down fairly quickly. Same thing when powering across the water..the trim fails. He has checked fluid levels etc and they are fine..Is there a way to rebuild the hydraulic arm? I am assuming thats were the prob lies...any suggestions???????

[Scott K]

I had this same issue with a brand new 2000 40 hp Merc, they said it was designed to do that so it doesnt over rev. I hated it, after trying to load the boat and the motor trimmed down into the rocks at the shallow landing.

[Ridgerunnr]

Well every boat i have ever had musta been defective because i have never seen that as an option..lol His is an 95 motor i think

[Ed Carlson]

To me... it sounds like an internal leaky pump seal, or an issue with Solenoid Valve? Or... maybe ... the solenoid actuator is not set properly or is loose and allowing it to bleed back due to being partially actuated on one side of the control?

If the ram is not visibly leaking power steering fluid, and there is sufficient fluid in the system, the valve may be leaking back under the strain/weight. So that would be a place to start. Could be as easy a fix as a new "O" Ring?

Air in the system can do some weird things too, see if it has any air in it. Like jumpiness and chatter, that is a sign of air in a hydrological system.

[PTocko]

I had this same issue with a brand new 2000 40 hp Merc, they said it was designed to do that so it doesnt over rev. I hated it, after trying to load the boat and the motor trimmed down into the rocks at the shallow landing.

This is a designed in "feature" - but not for the reasons your dealer told you. Basically the smaller motors (like a 40) have a single small(er) diameter shaft for the tilt / trim - if it did not give you could potentially bend this shaft and end up with much bigger problems. It is only designed to "give" to a point where it will firm up - not sure how much the travel ends up being but it isn't huge on the smaller motors - again they want to protect the shaft from bending. Hope this helps - Paul

[marine_man]

One quick thing I would check is the manual bypass valve - not sure what motor your buddy has, but on most, on the RH side of the mounting bracket for the motor (that's outside the boat), there's a slot in the lower portion of the lh mounting bracket - through that slot there's a large flat head screw - make sure that's tight (it's the manual bypass valve).

marine_man