Re: alpha leg on 2001 boat goes down will not lift
This problem is often the trim limit switch wiring fraying and coming apart around the bell housing because as you turn the drive the wires can get pinched between the bell housing and gimbal ring. If this is the case the easy (lazy/cheap) fix is to simply cut the wires in the boat and short them thereby bypassing the switch and your drive will go up fully. The risk is that without the switch nothing will stop the drive from raising to any height when you're trimming in the water so you have to be careful or else catastrophic u-joint failure could occur.
The 'right' way to fix it is to replace the trim limit switch (and adjust it to the trim limit specified in your service manual) and route the new wires through the transom plate. It's basically impossible to do this without at least removing the drive and bell housing. Many people rationalize not replacing it because of the labor involved given it'll just fail again (hopefully after several years) but you take the risk mentioned above when trimming.
