Re: Up Tilt Doesn't Always Work
Ok, this is what I've done and found. In case you're not into reading through what I did, the short story is that I think I fixed the problem and learned a lot along the way. For those of you that are going to read through and you think I may not have fixed the problem, please let me know what to look for and why.
I hot wired the tilt motor and both up and down work just fine. So, it's not the motor. Thanks RRitt for the idea and to hundee r1 for your link that led to roscoe's post on how to do this.
I switched the relays and found no difference in the operation - up tilt still didn't work. but down worked fine, so it seems that the problem is before the relays. Thanks ferdly1 for this suggestion.
I didn't try looking at the switch on the throttle arm because the tilt switch at the bow only works for down tilt, too. I am sure that the bow tilt switch worked fine last year. It seems unlikely that both of these switches would go out at the same time.
I looked at the fuses in the kickpanel to see if there was one burned out. Unfortunately, I have no paperwork or diagrams of the fuse layout, so I have no idea which fuse is for which component. I did find one fuse burned out and two loose connections, though. I replaced the blown fuse and fixed the loose connections. This did not fix my tilt problem. I'm not sure what the blown fuse is for. Maybe I'll find out later.
So, this is what I found:
I was following the wires to and from the relays, I pulled the wiring harness assembly out of the cowling to get a better look. In doing so, I didn't notice that the male to female plug on a green wire with white stripe had disconnected. This wire goes into the molded plug that plugs into the wiring harness assembly. There's another wire that travels with the green one that is blue with a white stripe.
I decided to try and tilt the motor ... I don't know why ... I just did. No up or down tilt! What the ____?
So I backtracked and found the disconnected plug for the green and white striped wire. I plugged them in. And I checked the blue with white stripe plug. It was not connected and was only held together by the silicone covering. I pluged them together. I tried the tilt switch and voila! both up and down worked! What the ____?
Then I remembered that out of each switch/relay there was a wire that came out and passed around the front of the motor and went into the molded plug that plugs into the wiring harness assembly. I noticed that the solid blue wire from the tilt motor (up tilt) was plugged into the same switch/relay that the blue and white striped wire came out of. The solid green wire from the tilt motor (down tilt) was plugged into the switch/relay that the green and white striped wire came out of. Apparently, these are the two wires that tell the switch/relays to ?close? so that the tilt gets power to turn on when I operated the tilt switches on the throttle arm or at the bow. I've also learned that before doing anything to diagnose an electrical problem make sure everything is connected!!!! You just might save some time and frustration.
I think that this blue with white stripe wire was disconnected and that is the only reason I couldn't tilt the motor up. If you think I should look at more than this, let me know.
Gentlemen, I thank you for your help and patience. I've got to say that I'm a little embarrassed :embarassed: and frustrated :frusty: that I've thrown out a request for help and found it to be a small problem that turned out to be a very simple fix. In the least I hope this helps someone else.
In my searching around, I found a burned female end of a male to female blug. The male end is fine. I will search the forum to see if I can find out what I should do for that. If I'm concerned with just replacing it and going on I will make a new post.
