My trim gauge has not worked on my 87 Starcraft Select 191s since I bought it last year. Gauge is pegged to up position. Replacing all my gauges anyway as they are old & weathered. My trim sender seems intact so I removed it from the outdrive & noticed the spring does not return the arm when you push it down. It does not look broken. There is considerable resistance when you push the arm back & forth. Can this be taken apart to repair or do I have to buy a new one? They are over $200 in Canada from Sierra aftermarket. If i do have to get a new one I dont relish the idea of re feeding the trim wire through the transom & past the steering arm bracket. Any tricks on how to repair or replace?
Howdy,
The gage being "pegged" is usually from a shorted sender wire, either at the sender or somewhere along the wire all the way back to the gage. ("shorting" the sender is one way to test an oil press, fuel level, temp etc gage )
The trim gage is a pretty useless gage in any event though, you cannot really use it to trim the boat while underway. It works much better to trim by "feel" and speed etc.
So the gage is really only useful to determine all the way UP (which you can also do by just running the drive UP and stopping when the pump "labors" or down when you hear or feel the "clunk")
Now having said that, I like mine to "work" also. While you may be able to take it apart and "fix" it, they're usually so corroded and "messed up" internally it may not be worth even trying to "fix" it unless you can replace the variable "pot" inside.
Sorry this is not really a lot of help. If you really want the thing to work you may be stuck with replacing it with either a used or new one.
Regards,
Rick
