Doubt it's an 81'....88SPL's made their appearance in 87'.
Look on the port transom bracket. Should be a little plate there with the Model and Serial number on it. You'll want the model number. Post it here and we can give you the info you need. Does it have trim and tilt?
I could be wrong but I always thought that the spl came stock with the manual tilt...if this is so and a tilt and trim was added to it then you may want to consider that the manual models in some years had a 6 amp stator where as the power tilt had a 10 amp. If it is the stator and it has to be replaced or if you have to pull the flywheel anyway you may want to consider replacing it with a 10 amp (if it does indeed have a 6 amp). I'm no mechanic by any means so you will definitely want to find out for sure about your model but I converted my '78 85 from manual to power but left the 6 amp on there. The consensus here was that it should be fine but if I ever have to pull the flywheel for any reason I'll probably put a 10 amp on (I already have one from a blown motor I have).
