Trim Indicator Wiring
 

Wire Ties that hold the trim indicator wiring inside the gimbal housing broke and I've pinched and destroyed the wiring. Anybody got any tricks up their sleeve that I don't know about on how to get into the bolt compression bracket where the wiring harness goes through outdrive housing. Can get to it by only pulling the hinge pins and lowering the unit a little or do I have to pull drive and then the gimbal ring. Hellva alot of work to get to one bolt.

Thanks, Valley Boy

Had the same problem once, I think the wires run next to the belows and pull through, but not shure on every boat

There are times when you just want to rip the whole idea of an outdrive off the back of the boat and this is one of them. The trim sender and trim limiter switches are notorious fpr failure and the time to replace a simple component like these is upside down to their obviously out in the open location. All due to that simple compression gasket held in by one damn bolt.

No easy way out that I know of and I've replaced perhaps a hundred of them. It's difficult to just pull the drive back after pulling the hinge pins because the bellows almost always are also in the way. My recommendation is go through the agony, replace both switches, bellows, check and grease the gimbal bearing and ujoints carefully, clean the shift cable end pocket of any foriegn debris and reassemble. Make sure you properly locate the little strap that keeps the wires positioned so that they don't chafe (a very common problem) and short out.

You can then feel good about completely preventative maintenancing your unit and it helps overcome the frustration of the time spent knowing you have completed a needed maintenance check.

PS: If all that ails your switches is that they have chafed through on the wiring you may be able to find the spot by turning the drives all the way to one side or the other and then with an artists paintbrush paint on some liquid electrical tape to buy yourself some temporary relief.

If someone else comes up with a more novel / quick solution please advise me.

Mark

I just finished rebuilding my transom assemblies and of course, I replaced both senders. The wires and compression nut are right above the u-joint bellows. I dont know how you would get at them without removing the bellows. I am working on an inexpensive replacement for the trim position sender. There was a guy on Boatered that drilled a hole in his transom and just ran the new wires through it instead of messing with the transom assembly. A little crude but effective, especially if the boat stays in the water where no one can see the wire.