2003 Johnson 70hp - Power Trim/Tilt Goes Up But Not Down

[ga_sportsman]

2003 Johnson 70hp Outboard - Model J70PL4STC - Power Trim/Tilt Goes Up But Not Down

Power Trim/Tilt works normally going up, but will not come back down. Operating the trim down switch (from the helm or the motor itself) you can hear a "click" sound but the pump motor doesn't run like it does when going up. The only way to get the motor down is to manually release. Fluid level is good. Can anyone offer suggestions on what could be the issue?

 

[Will Bark]

Look for a connection where the wires come out of the relay box and then go down to the tilt motor. Check that the connectors are clean and making good contact; I spray battery cleaner in the connector on my motor. Good luck

 

[boobie]

Find the box where the relays are. Swap them and see what happens.

 

[Big Fish Billy]

Ditto Dat Guy......

 

[daselbee]

Not so fast guys.....granted, it is probably the down relay, but you can't swap them.
This is a 4 stroke. Suzuki made. The T&T relays are under the plastic electrical box cover on the stbd side of the engine.
They are round, and they are the two upper relays on the forward side of the electrical box. The starter relay is the bottom one.
If you look real close, the studs where the wires connect have paint on them. The relay with the green painted power stud is the down relay.

Frankly, the job of swapping the relays is very time consuming and not worth the effort. Then the colors won't match up, and he will have to swap them back, along with putting the new relay in.

You are going to have to debug this properly, electrically following the circuit to find the fault, or shotgun the down relay.
Shotgunning the down relay is the easiest way, but obviously the expensive way.

To get you started on the electrical troubleshooting, locate the down relay, should be the center one, and find the small wire that "picks the relay", or causes it to operate. There are small black ground wires all in there, there is the green power wire that goes down to the T&T motor and there is the pick wire. It will have an inline butt connector, and I think the wire color is pink with a stripe. Pull that conector apart, put a trouble light or voltmeter on the harness side of that connector. NOT THE RELAY SIDE, the harness side. Operate the down switch, and look for the light or meter to show voltage at that point. If you have the light go on, or the meter to read 12v, you are good up to the relay. That eliminates much of the circuitry right there.

 

[boobie]

Good catch Dasel............

 

[boobie]

With that set up it should be very easy with either a volt meter or test light to see what the problem is. I think the older Yamahas had the same set up.

 

[ga_sportsman]

Thanks to everyone for responding.

Daselbee - You are spot on and I actually got to the point of ordering and replacing that down relay that you describe. I never thought to check voltage in the pink butt connector, but I am going to do that today just to be double sure. I still have the problem and I want to make sure that the problem is not ME - forgetting where all the wires went in the time between disassembly, ordering a part, and reassembly. I am now looking for a wiring diagram (cant find one) to make sure I put all the wires back in the correct spot. (you almost have to take all the wires off of all three parts to get the middle relay out) You may can help with this as you described the setup exactly in your previous post. I think I know where most of them go...my question is specific to the small black wires that come out of each relay.

Each relay has attachment points where you can connect INCOMING wires. They also each have two OUTGOING wires. One colored wire to the harness side butt connector (color depending on which of the 3 relays we are looking at) and one black wire. I'm not sure exactly where these black wires are supposed to go. There is one of these small black wires from the main relay at the bottom (starter relay maybe?) where the main battery leads are attached. There is one small black wire out of the down relay in the middle, and there is one small black wire out of the up relay at the top. I am pretty sure they all go to the black/bottom screw on other relays near them, but not sure the specific order...

PS - When I did a part lookup, I only found one part for the relays. I am assuming that the only difference between the down and up relays are the color of the wire. The new relay (Johnson 5031483 - Trim Relay Assembly) came with a blue wire and the blue dot on the terminal. I didn't see any way to specify if I wanted the up (blue) or down (green) trim assembly. I inserted this new relay in the place of the green one and connected its blue outgoing wire to the pink connector. Are these parts interchangeable or do I need to find a different part?

Any help here is much appreciated.

 

[ga_sportsman]

Some additional information...

(1) Replacing the down relay with a new part (blue one - see above post) does not correct the problem, it is still the exact same. "click" when you hit the down trim switch.

(2) Swapping the colored outgoing wires from the up and down relays (swapping the wires going to the blue and pink butt connectors with each other) causes the trim switch function to operate backwards. Down on the switch trims the motor up and up on the switch results in a "Click".

 

[daselbee]

The ol' can of worms.....
First, this is a Suzuki DF70. Go to brownspoint dot com to look up Suzuki part numbers for this engine as another source
They wil have the proper DOWN reay for you...green dots and pink wire, so that the repair is correct and not "rigged"

Up but no down....OK. Lets get to basics. Take the two heavy leads, bue and green, off the respective relays. Wire these leads directly to the battery using wire that is at least as big as the blue and green trim motor leads.
If you wire it with the blue to positive, and the green to negative, the trim/tilt will go up.
If you reverse the wiring....green on positive and blue on negative, the trim will go down.

Let's see if that works first.

I will have to get eyes on the back wires and the wiring for that to answer correctly how they go.

 

[daselbee]

I tracked down a 70 4 stroke to examine the wiring.
OK.....in and around the trim solenoid mounting area, there are many black ground wires. They are in two sizes, approx. #12 and #18...somewhere around those sizes.
The two bottom lugs on each trim solenoid have the two large #12 black wires attached with the mounting nut. The other end of these black wires is routed up and out the horseshoe shaped notch in the plastic electrical box, and then on over to the same location that the negative battery cable attaches. That being one of the bolts that holds the starter mounting strap in place. The large #12 gauge wires are grounded to the block in that fashion.

The smaller black wires appear to be the grounds for the pick coils of each solenoid. They are grounded in multiple places down into the mess of wiring...
There are a couple of bolts that you can use to attach those wires to.

If one of the two #12 large wires is not attached to ground, you will experience your symptoms.
If one of the smaller pick wires is not grounded, the solenoid will not click at all.

What was the result of the test I asked you to do...direct connect the blue and green wires to the battery...then reverse the wiring polarity...

 

[ga_sportsman]

Thanks for the great info dasel. I really appreciate it and I'm sorry for being slow to respond. I am currently traveling but I will try this out as soon as I can and let you know the results.

 

[ga_sportsman]

OK, so I was able to successfully test the tilt/trim by direct wiring. It works up and down with reversing the polarity, so at least we know that is good. I followed the two larger black wires from the bottom lugs of the solenoids to the block where they were all grounded as you describe. I pulled this screw out and wire brushed all the connectors just to make sure all had a good connection there. These two leads actually combine into one ring terminal at the ground screw. This makes me think that this ground is probably good since it works properly in one direction.

I have not yet ordered the "correct" part and I have the "rigged" part in place. I still get the "click" when I hit the down switch.
Question: Would this "rigged" part work if the problem was the solenoid/relay in the first place or is something different inside this part that makes it different? (other than the blue paint) The reason I ask is that I'm not sure I can return the $130 part at this point. I can get some green nail polish to save $130. haha

 

[daselbee]

Yes the relay will work, it just has the wrong color coding, not only at the terminal (green paint vs blue paint) but the pick wire from the solenoid is blue, and you have a pink wire attached to it at the inline connector.
Could really confuse someone in the future. But it will work. And you are right....130 bucks is robbery.

Going to have to start measuring voltages.

Get a voltmeter on those terminals. Measure each point to ground as the reference. Measure the UP relay, record the voltages, measure the DOWN relay and look for differences.

You know the silver buss bar that connects the three solenoids, right? Is that connected well to the center solenoid? The DOWN one...

I don't see how it could not be connected right.

It sure sounds like you are not getting a good ground path from the UP solenoid to the block. That would do exactly as you describe.
Test this theory by removing the ground from the DOWN solenoid....see then that you have no UP function, but the solenoid clicks.
You have a second circuit, wired the same, that you can compare.

No, I did not say that backwards. The down circuit gets it's ground thru the UP solenoid and the up circuit gets it's ground from the DOWN solenoid.

 

[ga_sportsman]

OK - I will try that this afternoon and yes the silver bus bar is securely connected across the three solenoids. There is also a white/red wire that connects at the bottom solenoid.

Can you tell me where the small black pick wires from each solenoid/relay are supposed to be attached. Does it matter as long as they are grounded? I'm assuming that the small black outgoing wire from the UP (blue) solenoid/relay should attach to the bottom lug on the DOWN (green) solenoid/relay and vice versa?

 

[daselbee]

I think I now what is wrong. I bet you are not getting ground THRU the UP solenoid to the large blue wire.
Take your meter, put it on ohms, measure from the upper lug (blue paint) to the lower lug (ground). Don't hit any switches when meter is in ohms mode. It might be necessary to remove the black wires from the lower lug of the UP relay and just measure across the relay looking for 0 ohms or (full continuity).

Take the old DOWN relay, and measure across the upper lug to the lower lug and see if you DO have continuity. I bet your problem is in the UP relay not providing ground when it is de-energized.

How about that for irony? You buy the wrong 130 buck relay, and it turns out that it was the defective one after all? (That is IF my theroy is right.)

 

[ga_sportsman]

daselbee, You NAILED it!!!!

No continuity between upper and lower lugs on the UP relay caused it to not ground when trying to trim down. Replacing the UP relay restored operation of the DOWN power trim/tilt.

Thank you so much for the great help, I couldn't have done it without you.

...and you are right, ironic that I even had the right part already.

 

[daselbee]

...and you are right, ironic that I even had the right part already.

Cool. Now your wiring and colors match!! Good your back trimming and tilting.

 

[Jon prange]

Cool. Now your wiring and colors match!! Good your back trimming and tilting.

I have a 2000 Johnson 115. Reading the comments. At full throttle ,when I trim my motor up. My volt meter on the console drops. I here a loud click back by the engine. And the motor loses power. Starts to chug until I let off the trim button. My first assumption is a bad ground or bad connection. The trim up and down both work. Everything seams normal. But my thought is my loss of power ,and the chugging of the motor ,is causing me to lose spark. Only at full throttle. If I throttle back a little bit the trim works fine. And the chugging of my engine stops.

 

[GA_Boater]

I have a 2000 Johnson 115. Reading the comments. At full throttle ,when I trim my motor up. My volt meter on the console drops. I here a loud click back by the engine. And the motor loses power. Starts to chug until I let off the trim button. My first assumption is a bad ground or bad connection. The trim up and down both work. Everything seams normal. But my thought is my loss of power ,and the chugging of the motor ,is causing me to lose spark. Only at full throttle. If I throttle back a little bit the trim works fine. And the chugging of my engine stops.

Please start a new thread.

Closed.