Donman

I recently installed my new engine. On the first trip to the lake, I noticed that the trim gauge was not working properly (yes, I know I should have noticed this in the shop, on the trailer, but I didn`t). With the key off, the needle is all the way in the UP position. When you turn the key on, the needle goes all the way to the DOWN position and flickers. It does not matter what position the drive is in, the gauge acts the same. I disconnected the wires on the back of the gauge, one at a time to watch how gauge reacted. With key on, I disconnected the "I" (ignition) wire, gauge went dead as if key turned off. I reconnected "I" wire and disconnected "S" (sender) wire. Same story, gauge died. I reconnected "S" wire and disconnected "GND" (ground) wire...no difference, gauge needle flickers. By disconnecting and reconnecting the ground wire, it made no difference in the gauge`s position. Therefore, I suspect that my problem is a bad ground. I used another ground wire from a different gauge, no difference. I suspect that the poor ground must be back at the drive, near the sender. I inspected the trim sender and the ground wires around the drive. All look OK.
What do I do next?
All help is truly appreciated !

Donman

All great advice !

My gauge is down all the time. I will check sender more carefully. All of this happened after I installed engine. It was working perfectly 4 weeks ago. Maybe a wire did not get connected properly.
Is the sender on the side of the drive, near the transom mount? It is round and black, one on each side, correct?

Falcon

As a quick gauge check, disconnect the sender wire at the gauge or drive (at the drive end, one wire goes back to the dash, the other goes to ground, disconnect both). short the sender position on the gauge to ground. the gauge should go from one extreme to the other. I don't remember which way on trim gauges. If it does, start looking someplace else.

Good luck!

Mike Paula

Ok, how about sender adjustments. I have a bravo 1 with what seems to be two senders on it. I am assuming it is taking an average? Is this correct? How do you adjust them?

Outdrive1

The sender will be on the starboard side of your drive. The sender on the port side is your trim limiter (to be used if you have a trailer button). That sender has two wires that go through the transom and usually are connected somewhere around your distributer or ecm. The basic principle is that as the drive moves up and down it turns the sender which has a resistor in it. One wire connects to ground the other is a signal. The more ground your gauge sees from the signal the higher your needle moves. You can adjust the position of the sender with the two set screws on your drive, just turn your drive to port and you will be able to access it. Trim your drive down, turn on your ignition, and set your sender so that your gauge is all the way down. Then trim up your drive and the needle should move accordingly. If this does not work your sender could be bad, more than likely you have a short somewhere. I've seen the wires rot out between the sender and the transom more often than any other kind of failure. One more question, since you had the motor out you could have disconnected the wires inside the engine compartment, remember there are two wires for the sender and two wires for your trim limiter. Make sure you have them connected properly, you could also switch them to see if you connected them wrong.

Donman

The only wires connected to the engine are: water temp sender in intake, "one-wire" to alternator, oil temp sender in oil pan, wire plug to MSD distributor and "several" ground wires, all of which appear to be accounted for.
This is almost certainly a ground wire problem. I intend to fully inspect all of the wires behind engine and make sure everything is connected.

TomR

It almost sounds like you reversed the connections!

Donman

That`s the funny thing....I don`t think that I even disconnected any of these wires while swapping the engine.