Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

[B.autry4711A]

Hello,<br /><br />I have a quick question. My trim guage has never worked in my boat since I have owned it. I looked at the back of the guage under the dash and all the wires appear to be connected. Do these trim guages have a reputation to quit working or do they last forever? I also remember when I bought the boat that the trim switch on the remote controller throttle handle was installed upside down so they had to remove the switch and rotate it back the right way. Would this cause the trim guage not to work?

 

[OBJ]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

The trim switch on the control handle really doesn't have anything to do with the trim gage working. The trim gage gets it's signal from the sender at the engine. Look on the port transom bracket for the sender. It will have an arm on it which is moved by the engine when the engine is raised or lowered. There will be two black wires coming from it....the wire actually looks like a black extension cord wire...these run up to the gage.<br /><br />Make sure the 12 Volt supply to the gage is hot. This supply can come from any 12 volt source.<br /><br />With power to the gage and the engine tilted all the way up, you can move the lever on the trim sender and watch the gage to see if it works.

 

[B.autry4711A]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

OBJ,<br /><br /> O.K. I found it. Now right now the tach receptacle on the remote controller with one wire comming out of it is connected to the trim guage. When I turn the key on you can see the trim guage needle moving all the way clockwise. I have also raised and lowered the motor and the needle on the trim guage doesn't move at all. Eventually I am going to change that tach receptacle to a tach harness and install a tach I am bidding on on Ebay. I will jumper the tach power to the trim guage for its power. But right now the tach rceptacle has only one wire comming out of it and going to the trim guage to power it. Let me know if this is all right to use the tach receptacle for its power. It looks like the wires are connected to the guage from the motor.

 

[OBJ]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

Shouldn't be a problem Bubba......

 

[B.autry4711A]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

Hello again OBJ,<br /><br /> My question is also since I have run the motor up and down with the power to the trim guage the needle still does not move on the trim gauage and I have traced the wires from the transom to the guage and it still doesn't work is the trim Guage bad? Yes, The little trim lever on the port side of the transom is there and intact. However, there is a black wire above the lever looks to be a ground wire it has a little corosion on it do you think I need to clean this up?

 

[rickdb1boat]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

Bubba<br />Disconnect the wires from the sender(Black ones) at the gauge and while you have your trusty ohmeter hooked up to each wire, have someone move the trim switch arm. You should see a resistence change on the meter. It will range from 1 Ohm in the full up position, to 88 Ohms in the down position. This would show that your sender is working and that the gauge is suspect, if the other wiring(12V) is good...

 

[B.autry4711A]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

RICKDB1BOAT,<br /><br />Let me get this right. I disconnect the 2 black wires from the back of the trim guage and set my meter to measure ohms and hook my red meter lead to one black wire and the other black meter lead to the other black wire and get someone my wife to move the trim lever on the back of the transom bracket. If the resistance shows 1 ohm up or 88 ohms down my wires are good and the meter is bad. Let me know if I am correct.

 

[ob]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

That's what he means Big Bubba.If you have clips for the end of your meter leads you can perform without an assistant.It makes no difference which ohm lead goes to which wire as you will simply be reading across the senders variable resistance.

 

[B.autry4711A]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

RICKDB1BOAT or OBJ,<br /><br />Hello again. Sorry I didn't get back to you guys had a rough week got very sick from some kind of bug but that has passed me and I feel good again. O.K. yesterday I went out to my boat and traced the trim gauge wires from the back of the motor and back towards the front. O.K. this is what I found it looks like these wires go into the fuse box and out towards the remote controller control. Under the dash at the trim guage there is a set of wires 5 each surronded by a black outer insulator. I don't see 2 black wires but I see one black wire with a tan or brown stripe and the other wire is a white wire with a brown stripe then there is three sets of wires that plug into a receptacle that goes to the throttle handle trim switch. Now I had my wife move the trim lever up and down at the back of the transom left side as looking at the back of the motor, I see the two wires comming out of the sender, and the lever rotates as the motor does because it has a spring on it. My question is I have a cheap digitial multimeter from radio shack. The only setting I could set it on is K omega meaning the ohm symbol would that work for doing the testing or is it 2 great. Also I looked at the back of the trim guage again there is five wires attached to it. One to the lamp, one from the tach receptacle, two I just mentioned a ways back in this forum is comming from the trim wire bundle is black with brown or tan stripe and the other is a white with brown or tan stripe which I think is the sender wires, and then there is one black wire which is being jumpered from the speedometer guage. Do you think this is wired up correctly? Let me know and sorry for the long posting I am just trying to explain what I did yesterday to the best of my ability. Thanks

 

[rickdb1boat]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

This is how it should be. I don't know where your wires are going, so I really can't say what is what up under there. If you can trace them down and refer to this diagram, you should be able to come up with it. It sounds like it is wired correctly now, but...<br /><br />

<br /><br />Bear in mind that the ground can be going back to the sender as well...

 

[B.autry4711A]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

Hello again OBJ and RICKDB1BOAT,<br /><br />O.k. I have traced my wires back from my trim gauge to the fuse box and I opened my fuse box up and found the 2 same coloredwires one is white with brown stripe and the other is black with a brown stripe. These wires where overlapping the 2 black wires and are secured to the fuse block with screws. So what I did today is removed the fuse box cover and removed 2 screws one securing the white with brown stripe wire and the one black wire and the other screw securing the black with brown stripe and the other black wire secured to the fuse block. What I did is set my multimeter to measure "K Omega/ohms" and I put my multimeter leads on both black wires I removed from the fuse block and I got 22.45 on my multimeter. This is with the engine in the full down position and I didn't cycle it through to see if the resistance would change. Anyway I think my trim sender unit on the boat motor transom bracket is bad what do you think?I also used the trim wiring diagram in this post that RICKDB1BOAT provided to me and the trim guage is connected properly.

 

[rickdb1boat]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

. The Trim Gauge can be tested by: Power the gauge by connecting a positive wire to the "I" terminal and<br />a ground wire to the "G" terminal. Have no other wires connected to the gauge. Pointer will read full UP<br />(all but Johnson/Evinrude outboards and pre-1978 OMC Selectrim - they will read full DOWN).<br />Next, with the power still connected, short the sender terminal at the gauge to ground. Pointer should go<br />to the full DOWN position (all but the Johnson/Evinrude outboards and pre-1978 OMC Selectrim - they<br />will go to full up).

 

[B.autry4711A]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

RICKDB1BOAT,<br /><br />O.K. I have tested the trim guage. This is what I got: With power to "I" and ground out "G" the guage needle went full down deflection. Then with power still to applied to "I" I put the ground to "S" and got full up deflection. Does this mean the guage is fine? I own a 1989 Evinrude V-4 SPL model# E88MSLCER outboard.

 

[rickdb1boat]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

Yes, the gauge is working as it should. Next before replacing the sender, I would ohm it out right at the sender itself(Your're going to have to disconnect the wires anyway to replace it). This will tell if it's a wiring problem between the sender and the gauge or the sender itself...

 

[B.autry4711A]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

RICKDB1BOAT, <br /><br />O.K. So your saying that I need to ohm it out at the sender. If so do I have to pull the wires from the fuse box or can I do it at the trim sender at the transom bracket where it is located at? If so how do I disconnect the wires from the sender itself? It looks like it is one piece with 2 black wires comming out of it. Also how hard is it remove the sender if I had to if it is bad? What would be easier for me to do is what I am asking.

 

[rickdb1boat]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

If the wires are one piece, I would just cut them at a convienient spot up high. Test the sender and when/if you replace it, you will have to splice it back together....<br /><br /> EDIT:

However, there is a black wire above the lever looks to be a ground wire it has a little corosion on it do you think I need to clean this up?

Just re-reading some of the posts. Did you make sure that the ground wire from the sender was good? (Very important). You said there was some corrosion there. Just checking, because if the sender checks out, you will then need to begin looking at the wiring from the sender to the gauge as the fault...

 

[B.autry4711A]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

RICKDB1BOAT,<br /><br />Hello again. O.K. I have did some more troubleshooting on the trim sender from the motor transom bracket. This is what I did today. I unplugged the harness above from the fuse box and removed the trim sender wire with connector and brought it to the back of the boat and I cut slightly into the insulation to expose fresh wires of both wires going into the sender about 3 inches from the sender itself and ohmed those two wires out. This is what it read with the meter at "K Omega" with that trim lever full up I got open "OL" then I moved the lever very slowly down and about a quarter of the way down I got some resistance (from 1.045 to 22.45 and never stayed the same it kept fluctuating all of the time) with me keeping the sender lever stationary, then I went down further and got open "OL" again at full down position. Does that mean the that the trim sender is bad? That wire I was talking about with corrosion is a completely separate black wire that attaches under one end of the sender attachment. what I mean is that one wire with the corrosion doesn't go inside the sender itself it only goes to one end of where the sender attaches with the 2 common screws to the transom bracket. I hope I am making sense with the one corroded wire. Again, it looks to me it goes from the sender attach point to somewhere under the front of the outboard engine.

 

[rickdb1boat]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

Again, it looks to me it goes from the sender attach point to somewhere under the front of the outboard engine. <br />

That would be the ground leg of the sender as seen in the diagram I posted. Sounds like from the readings you got, that it is the sender that is defective...<br /><br />BTW- I've done business with Taylor Marine((618) 277-0233) over in Belleville, Il. and they are good folks. They should have a new Sending unit assembly if you need to get one... Around $60.00... Part # 0583358

 

[B.autry4711A]

Re: Trim Guage on a 1989 Evinrude 88 horsepower SPL V-4 outboard

RICKDB1BOAT,<br /><br />Thanks for helping me out on the trim guage issue. Anyway, I was wondering if I didn't hook up that ground on the sender side on the transom and that the new sender that I get would still work? Also what I was going to do before I install the new sender unit is plug it back in above the fuse box and ensure power is to the trim guage and move the lever on the trim sender and see if the needle moves on the trim guage put it back to it's original configuration. Also I was thinking since the trim gauge is grounded would that suffice and I wouldn't have to hook the ground on the transom side. What do you think about that ideal? <br /><br />I have also dealt with Taylor Marine. They sale Pontoon Boats with Mecury motors. I had to buy a replacement brass plug assembly for my boat with them and they were really helpful. <br /><br />Thanks, Bob