1978 tilt trim pump disaster- need some guidance-

crovowen

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Jun 1, 2012
Messages
49
need some advice on Mercury trim pumps. my boat is a 1978 Kingfisher 170 with a mercury 1150 (115hp I6) ,with the factory tilt trim system. it is the three wire, two relay, four hose (2 big, 2 small) pump assembly. motor is clean and strong with good brushes. since i got the boat a year ago, the tilt has always been really sluggish, and always leaked, either from the fittings or the manifold. this past week, getting the boat ready for spring, i tried to tilt the motor up off of the transom saver bracket , and had no tilt. motor runs, relays work. When all of a sudden... :eek:POW and the sound of hydro fluid spraying all over the inside of the pump compartment. shut it all down, disconnected the electrical and tried to assess the problem. well, at some previous time one of the four 7/16 bolts holding the manifold on had been stripped out and it was now sitting under the pump. after removing the pump assembly from the boat, i proceeded to clean and dissasemble the bottom of the pump (manifiold and valve plate (?)) found an o ring had blown out between these two parts. upon further inspection, found stripped threads on both the manifold and pump base. I then found the seal between the pump base and reservoir also leaking, and decided to disassemble that and clean and seal it. after removing the base and pump assembly:confused:and looking at it realized there were only three torx head bolts holding the pump together, and four bolts were missing. It also looks like godzillas brother goopzilla was in the pump and had tried to fix it with a hammer. bottom line- pump is trash, manifold has stripped hose fitting threads, pump base has a stripped hole:facepalm: CARP!!! SO... having read on these AWESOME forums that this pump unit is basically obsolete, is their any company that can rebuild these or am i doomed to try and find a used one and hope for the best? or is there a later model pump for this? any ideas or comments are requested. sorry to be so verbose, but I am kinda venting some frustration:mad: here.
 

Laddies

Banned
Joined
Sep 10, 2004
Messages
12,218
Re: 1978 tilt trim pump disaster- need some guidance-

New pumps or complete assemblies are scarce but that pump assembly was the same on all outboards that used the Presolite system, even the I/O pump was the same with a differant valve body on the bottom so there are a lot of them out there if you look around at marinas and even salvage yards.
 

oldman570

Lieutenant Commander
Joined
Mar 25, 2011
Messages
1,615
Re: 1978 tilt trim pump disaster- need some guidance-

From the damage that has been done to the pump and parts , Your best bet would be to find a good used pump. The cost of repairing the one you have will probbly cost more and take more time. A look in the FQA section on here will get you several good salavage yards that might have the unit you need. I've also seen hem on Ebay for sale. JMO
Oldman570
 

MH Hawker

Vice Admiral
Joined
Jul 13, 2011
Messages
5,516
Re: 1978 tilt trim pump disaster- need some guidance-

I dont know enough about the pumps construction, but Heli coils may work to.
 
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