Stern drive trim gauge wacky

[girlboatie]

The gauge on my dash that tells me the angle/trim of the stern drive - leg - is not working properly. I don't REALLY need it to get to plane but it would be nice if it worked. I can usually tell if the bow is too high by how the engine sounds but it'd be nice to have the gauge behave itself.

Is it a real pain to find the problem? Where should I be looking?

Thanks,

girlboatie

 

[djlewis]

Re: Stern drive trim gauge wacky

All your guages work pretty much the same way, a sender sends a signal ( between 0 to 12 volts) and the guage shows the results. In this case your sender is located on the stern drive and varies the signal depending on the tilt angle. You can check the signal (voltage) with a meter on the back of your tilt guage. One meter lead to the signal (usually the purple wire) the other meter lead to ground. When moving the sterndrive up and down this voltage will change. If you see it doing this, then it means your guage is not showing these changes, and shoud be replaced. If you don't see these signal changes, then your problem is in the sender or wiring, and the degree of difficulty just went up!

Good luck girlie!!!

 

[girlboatie]

Re: Stern drive trim gauge wacky

Oh yuck. This doesn't sound like fun. I hope it's just a sensor. If not I have a feeling the gauge will be fixed in the next century.

Thank you for your advice - much appreciated!

girlboatie

 

[Five O'Clock]

Re: Stern drive trim gauge wacky

i have the same problem. my trim gauge bounces up and down real wacky. i bought a new gauge and tried that but it was the same thing. I feel as if it's going to be the sender on the actual drive. I would like to have it replaced, but as you said, I can just tell when I need to trim so I dont even look at the gauge anymore.

 

[tysonnathan]

Re: Stern drive trim gauge wacky

If your guage is bouncing you may have some insulation stripped off of the sender wire somewhere. I have an alpha 1 merc and when it has a bare spot on the wire where it binds up when i turn. I plan to fix it this fall when in do some other repairs