Convert Manual Hydraulic Tilt Assist To Power Tilt/Trim

[tgillane]

I have a 1996 40hp elo Mercury that has a manual hydraulic tilt assist on the motor to assist with the manual tilt of the motor. This may be a stupid question, but can the manual system be coverted into a Power Tilt/Trim system? If it can, can anybody give me some suggestions on how to do this? I can be contacted directly by tomgillane@charter.net or thru this forum. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

 

[RRitt]

Re: Convert Manual Hydraulic Tilt Assist To Power Tilt/Trim

yup. replace the manual pump assy. with an electric one, fabricate a custom trim spool to go between manual ram and power pump, add wiring and switch.

The manual ram does not have the fluid channel for trim bypass. You will have to replace the trim spool with a solid plug. You will still need to two orings or your system will leak fluid. So use a metal lathe to cut two clean oring grooves into your plug. Use your calipers to determine exact location and size of oring grooves to match existing trim spool.

Other 1996-2003 systems like the mercury 10HP tilt option and the two piece Force 70HP used a similar plug. If you spend 5-20 hours going through mercury parts diagrams you may (but i doubt it will be listed separately) be able to find a Merc # for the spool plug.

that's about it.

 

[GPSDuckHunter]

Re: Convert Manual Hydraulic Tilt Assist To Power Tilt/Trim

I've considered this with a 40hp Mercury recently as well. But wouldn't it be better to just get a jack plate that will do tilt and trim?

 

[RRitt]

Re: Convert Manual Hydraulic Tilt Assist To Power Tilt/Trim

If you need the jackplate to eliminate cavitation or something then get it. For tilt? It doesn't make much sense. You have to take the engine off boat, drill holes through transom, mount jackplate to hull, then remount engine onto jack plate.

Converting existing manual trim is easier, faster, & cheaper. If you do a full out rebuild on the hydraulics then its probably more reliable too. For about $350-$400 you can convert manual to power trim, rebuild the hydraulics, and slap on a new trim motor. That's basically a brand new system that fits without any modifications to your engine or boat.

The cost varies by about $100-$150 in and out of season. You still need to find a used hydraulic pump to bolt on. The price of this part varies tremendously over the course of a year.

 

[Reubl]

Hi, I know this is an old thread.

Converting my 1990’s 4-cyl 2-stroke 40hp mercury classic from tilt assist to electric/hydraulic is something I’d like to do. I understand it might be possible to use the existing ram. I have a remote trim and tilt hpu from an older blue band that could be used.

@RRitt (or anyone else). Could you provide any more info on the custom spool/interface required to convert the existing manual ram? Maybe a couple of photos?

Cheers,