Mercury Trim question

[Air Dog]

Can someone who knows what they are doing please tell me what to do here?

I have a 1989 200hp Merc.

Been running the engine for more than 4 years. About 450 hours since new on the outboard.

First year I got it the trim motor made a kinking sound occasionally when I was running and tried to trim it up and down.

I added more hyd fluid and the noise went away.

Well at the end of last year I noticed the fluid was leaking out the center piston seal. The seal was just sliding up and down the tilt shaft.

My question is must I buy a whole new unit?

Can I just fix the seal?

What was that noise I heard?

I use my boat in salt water. Since the seal has been breached, are the guts now all corroded from sitting all winter?

Thanks for any replies...

[Scream And Fly]

I might be wrong, but I think Mercury makes a trim cylinder rebuild kit for most systems - including yours.

Greg

[W. Tripp]

Like Greg said, Mercury makes a trim seal kit to rebuild the ram. I doubt that water has entered the cylinder, but it is possible.

Dissasembling the ram requires a special tool, but it can be done with a set of snap ring pliers. If you are interested in lifting the engine and removing the ram, this kit can be installed fairly easily. Just make sure you get the flat scrapers and the round o-ring seals in the correct order - pay attention to the seals before you take them off the ram. And inspect the inside of the ram cylinder for wear.

Make sure you lube all the joints on the clamp assembly at this time.

Once it is all together, have someone stand on the cavitation plate and trim the unit up and down several times to get all of the air out of the ram and lines.

I hope this helps,

[Air Dog]

Sounds like it's not too bad of a project...

I have a second parts motor that I think I will just swap the tilt/trim unit and procrastinate on rebuilding the seal from the leaky one.