"tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

[caldog101]

I have a great running 1984 115 hp in-line 6 that had no trim and tilt,I bought a same year motor for parts,i just installed the trim and tilt unit .now i need to get the wiring with a switch to the center console,my ? is what size wire "gauge' do i run from my 2 trim solenoids ,right now there are are 3 wires looks like green,blue and red but it is only 2 feet long and has a lot of connections that i want to take out.also what type of switch is recommended. thanks

 

[Laddies]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

I would use 12# but not less than 14#

#

 

[Texasmark]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

Caldog, No help to you, but a little trivia. I had the '84 85hp 4 cyl without PTT and later bought an '89 I6 115 with it. Man, it's night and day to have it. You'll love it.

Good luck,

Mark

 

[achris]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

The original trim switch console was a 3 button arrangement with the bottom button being IN/DOWN, the centre button being trim OUT and the top button being tilt UP. In order to tilt UP all the way one would have to press the centre and top buttons together. Trim limit.

On to what you have. The red wire is 'hot'(make sure you put a fuse in it), the sky is blue, so the blue wire is up and grass is green so the green wire is down. You could use a simple momentary toggle switch with a rating of about 5 amps or more.

And Mark's right, trim and tilt is gods' gift to boating.

Chris...........

 

[caldog101]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

Thanks guys ! those were just the answer's i was looking for ,i am also having a problem trying to fit the 3- wire trim and tilt motor wire into the motor"where it goes inside the motor " the reason is i have #2 guage battery wire with a very thick insulation 'for both pos. and neg." and it is taking up all the room up where you clamp it down to go into the motor my ? is would i be able to go down to # 4 gauge for the battery cables ? i havent even put in the # 14 gauge for the switch and is to tight now , the boat is a 1973 hewes bonefisher the length of the battery cables is about 12 feet going from 1 battery to my 1984 115 hp merc

 

[Laddies]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

The original wires to the battery were 8#

 

[caldog101]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

So you are saying that they came from the battery to the motor with #8 wire.If so 12 feet of # 4 should be plenty,
I live in miami and the temp right now is 40 degrees what happened to GLOBAL WARMING ? Thanks guys for all your help

 

[caldog101]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

Oh !! almost forgot what size fuse for the red wire ?

 

[Laddies]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

Caldodog, go back to the wiring diagram the breaker and the fuse are both shown and sized.

 

[caldog101]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

OK guys things worked out good put in momentery switch and hooked everything up and it works great,one more ? what is the trim limit switch for and do i need it, reason i am asking is when i trimmed the motor all way up to engage the engine lock to keep it upright ,when i went to go down to take the weight off the trim cylinder the motor kept coming down and almost broke the engine lock device ,it would brake it if i keep trim down thanks again for all your help,

 

[achris]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

I'm glad it all worked out well with the switch....

The trim limit switch is a positional limit, not a pressure limit. They usually die pretty quick, so don't worry about that. The force produced by the hydraulic system is quite high, so running the system in 'DOWN' with the tilt locks on could easily damage something. Just run the system DOWN until the locks touch the top of the clamp brackets, and stop. That's all you need to do.

Cheers,

Chris.......

 

[RichNewby]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

Sorry to kidnap this thread but is it acceptable to use two momentry rocker switches, one for trim and one for tilt? I.e have one for trim up and trim down and one for tilt up and tilt down?

Cheers
Rich

 

[Laddies]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

Yes, Rich

 

[achris]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

Sorry to kidnap this thread but is it acceptable to use two momentry rocker switches, one for trim and one for tilt? I.e have one for trim up and trim down and one for tilt up and tilt down?

Cheers
Rich

Trim and tilt are one and the same thing. Both terms refer to the movement of the engine. One, trim, usually refers to movement close to the fully down position, while tilt refers to moving the engine to the fully up position. You use one switch for 'both'. Usually the manufacturer will put a 'trim limit switch' in place. This is to reduce the chance of the operator tilting the engine too far up while traveling. Most of these switches fail quite quickly and few owners have them replaced, just either short them out in the harness or just use the 'trailer' switch on the control.

Chris.........

 

[MercFan]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

I'll quickly go through how my old 1970 I6 T&T works in conjunction with the trim limit switch.

When my engine is fully trimmed up with the trailer bracket in place, I use a strap to pull the engine down onto the trailer bracket. The strap simply hooks onto the skeg and onto the boat trailer.
So I remove the strap first and then move the trailer bracket out of the way. I can now use my trim down switch to trim the engine all the way down. My engine actually trims a little bit the negative, so that my prop thrust will actually push the *** end of the boat upward and out of the water. So I don't do a hole shot with the bow pointing to the sky, however impressive that may look. Once on plane I us my trim up switch to trim the motor up and out to lighten the steering. My trim limit switch is adjusted to such a postion that I can hold the trim up engaged all day, and the prop won't climb out of the water. So my trim up is limited by the trim limit switch. If I want to get the engine higher out of the water to trailer it, I have have a seperate button for that. That button will engage the trim-up and ignore the trimup limit switch, so the engine will trim up all the way for trailering.

 

[achris]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

I'll quickly go through how my old 1970 I6 T&T works in conjunction with the trim limit switch.

When my engine is fully trimmed up with the trailer bracket in place, I use a strap to pull the engine down onto the trailer bracket. The strap simply hooks onto the skeg and onto the boat trailer.
So I remove the strap first and then move the trailer bracket out of the way. I can now use my trim down switch to trim the engine all the way down. My engine actually trims a little bit the negative, so that my prop thrust will actually push the *** end of the boat upward and out of the water. So I don't do a hole shot with the bow pointing to the sky, however impressive that may look. Once on plane I us my trim up switch to trim the motor up and out to lighten the steering. My trim limit switch is adjusted to such a postion that I can hold the trim up engaged all day, and the prop won't climb out of the water. So my trim up is limited by the trim limit switch. If I want to get the engine higher out of the water to trailer it, I have have a seperate button for that. That button will engage the trim-up and ignore the trimup limit switch, so the engine will trim up all the way for trailering.

And that's exactly how Karl designed it to all work!

All I'd add to that is be careful securing the leg of the outboard to the trailer. If the boat bounces then you could end up with a problem. Better to use a device called a 'transom saver' which secures the leg to the hull of the boat, not the trailer.

Chris..........

 

[caldog101]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

Ok guy's going for a test drive tommorrow,I will keep you informed !
according to the manual i ran the motor up all the way and filled it up then ran it down and up again then topped it off using regular transmission fluid,hope this is ok
also i need to eventually change out the manual release valve it is plastic and the head is broke off but it is tightened down all the way what would be the best way to change this out? i have a used trim and tilt unit off a 1991 200 hp mercury the manual release valve looks the same,I was wondering if it will fit thanks " i have tried looking on websites to match the part number and they are asking for a serial # but i only have the trim and tilt unit "

 

[caldog101]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

well guys finally took it out, and what a difference it made.Trim and tilt ran great ,i also picked up a little top end speed ,now one last thing i would like to change out the manual release vavle ,does the motor have to be in the up position as if you were filling it up? thanks again

 

[achris]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

Doesn't matter where the engine is, just as long as the pressure is off the system, or you're going to end up with an oil shower....

Chris........

 

[*EdC*]

Re: "tower of power" Just installed trim and tilt, need advice

Here is something my local Merc mechanic told me. Merc used to have a dash mounted switch. It used one solenoid on the tilt/trim motor and the wiring was rather heavy gauge. Once they added the switch to the control lever they went to a two solenoid set up. This way a smaller gauge wire could fit up into the control handle. Using two solenoids, the amperage was less, thus allowing for a lighter gauge wire.