Hardin Marine Trim Pump Adventure
05-15-2017 | 06:11 AM
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From: Md
Hardin Marine Trim Pump Adventure
I decided to replace my rusty crusty original 1992 Bravo trim pump with the upgraded Hardin unit with the stainless bracket. I really like their stainless seawater pump so I went for it at about $550.00
Out of the box the unit looked nice but had no paper work other than a sales receipt. No installation instructions or anything. How hard can a trim pump be? Right?
The first thing I noticed was every electrical connection was very loose. No problem, fixed that. Next I noticed there was no small bracket for the connector like my original and the 3 prong connector just hung by some wires. No problem, I robbed the one from my original pump and installed that.
After installing the unit on the bilge floor I hooked up all my electrical and hit the trim button. Nothing. Up, down, trailer, nothing. Checked all my connections and began to wonder if it would need to be shipped back. Another half hour with a multi meter and looking at the old unit and I discovered it was mis-wired. The 12 volt motor ground connection was bolted to the positive voltage bus essentially shorting out the motor. I don't know if that was an intentional thing for shipping but it sure was frustrating for awhile.
That fixed, I mistakenly tried connecting the hydraulic lines directly to the pump. I just couldn't get them seated properly so looking at my old unit I realized there were two bronze adapters on the old unit. I know now that these adapters are needed on any Bravo installation so to not include them on a unit marketed for a Bravo stern drive really sucks (they are on the pump in the on-line picture). I salvaged the ones from my old unit but that was almost a disaster for the new pump threads.
The unit finally works and it works well. Very responsive compared to my old one and it looks really nice too. Just watch out for the unnecessary and aggravating gotchas along the way. If I didn't have an old unit to salvage parts from and use as a wiring guide I would have needed to return it.
Out of the box the unit looked nice but had no paper work other than a sales receipt. No installation instructions or anything. How hard can a trim pump be? Right?
The first thing I noticed was every electrical connection was very loose. No problem, fixed that. Next I noticed there was no small bracket for the connector like my original and the 3 prong connector just hung by some wires. No problem, I robbed the one from my original pump and installed that.
After installing the unit on the bilge floor I hooked up all my electrical and hit the trim button. Nothing. Up, down, trailer, nothing. Checked all my connections and began to wonder if it would need to be shipped back. Another half hour with a multi meter and looking at the old unit and I discovered it was mis-wired. The 12 volt motor ground connection was bolted to the positive voltage bus essentially shorting out the motor. I don't know if that was an intentional thing for shipping but it sure was frustrating for awhile.
That fixed, I mistakenly tried connecting the hydraulic lines directly to the pump. I just couldn't get them seated properly so looking at my old unit I realized there were two bronze adapters on the old unit. I know now that these adapters are needed on any Bravo installation so to not include them on a unit marketed for a Bravo stern drive really sucks (they are on the pump in the on-line picture). I salvaged the ones from my old unit but that was almost a disaster for the new pump threads.
The unit finally works and it works well. Very responsive compared to my old one and it looks really nice too. Just watch out for the unnecessary and aggravating gotchas along the way. If I didn't have an old unit to salvage parts from and use as a wiring guide I would have needed to return it.
Last edited by NightHawk; 05-15-2017 at 06:19 AM.
