Trim Guages?

I have twin Yamaha F200's. The trim guages were not showing the correct trim of the motors and upon further investigation I found the tell tales on the engines were both frozen. I mannaged to free them up so they move but the guages still show the same no matter which position they are in. I am going to dive deeper into them today but I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem and what the solution was. I'm thinking new senders but that may have to wait. Thanks.

My trim guage freezes up about once a year. Grease squezes thru and gums up sending unit. I spray WD-40 to disolve grease. Easy repair.

Thanks. I shot them up with Corrosion Blocker on Sunday, got them to move but they are still reading in the same location. Maybe when I get to them today the stuff will have worked its way in. I just need to dig a little deeper. Ever take yours apart?

Can you wiggle the black plastic "arm" to loosen it up? Turn on ignition and wiggle the arm, should see guage bars move. I have heard of the arms freezing up and breaking off. If so, easy to replace, 1 screw holds it on sending unit.

On my engine, the little arm that sticks out and moves the trim sender up and down broke off and I had to jury rig something using a standoff from a PC motherboard. Two years later its still working fine, but every once in a while it needs the WD40 treatment to loosen it up and get it working again.

Crummy design IMHO, with a couple of little plastic pieces that can be easily broken, forcing you to replace the trim sender which is $$$.

-- Tom

The black plastic arms actually move. I freed those up. I had to loosen the screws on both to get them to move. I was just wondering what the arm actually movers. Must be something in the sensor, that may be frozen. Both cases the bars are still in the same spot. 3 on the Port and 5 or 6 on Statboard, no matter which position the motors are in. I'll dig deeper when I get home today. Thanks guys.

Just to make sure.. Part # 1 does not rotate, it is fixed into position. The lever on part # 3 is what moves as the engine is tilted up and down and sends the position info to the gauge.

Hope this helps..

-- Tom

Let us know how you make out. I'm actually having the same issue and havent had a chance to tear into it yet. The arm was stuck so I sprayed it up, loosened the screw a hair and now it moves fine. But the reading on the guage is stuck on 3.

Thanks for the diagram Tom. Should help alot. Always good to look at the pictures. I will probably dig into them tomorrow.

I checked on a price at the local dealer. $145 for ONE sending unit. Hopefully they can be repaired.

I'll keep you guys posted.

I've got the Yam 150 and had a stuck trim reading. The part of the sender that rotates was frozen. Sprayed it with CRC and worked it back and forth a lot before it finally was fully free. It's spring loaded so it should always return to the 'up' position on its own. For mine, lowering the engine pushes the arm of the sender against the stationary arm that's on the bracket. Just freeing it up wasn't enough in my case. Spring tension alone wasn't always enough to return the sender to the full up position.

If that's not it, how many wires coming from the sender? Mine has 2 wires. If yours does also, there should be a connector from the sender under the cowl. Disconnect it and put an ohm meter across the sender wires. Take readings as you manually move the sender from full up to full down. The reading should vary as the sender is moved to different positions. A service manual should have the right readings for your engine, but mine goes from a few ohms to about 350. If the ohm reading doesn't change or only changes a small amount, then the sender is probably shot. I don't know if its repairable or comes apart enough to actually do anything that might help.

Good luck

John

May not apply to your trim gage, but my Command Link trim indicator was not working. After lots of fooling around, it was the programming in the Command Link because after sensing low voltage they default to the factory setting.

I checked the rotator, the resistance in the sensor, etc. before ever thinkng about my gauge setting.

,,,,,,,,,,,,Pete

Boats.net - which has amazing diagrams like the one above. Has the sender for:
69J-83672-00-00 TRIM SENDER $107.26

I think its the same one - I guessed your 200 was a 2003 and it was listed under "bracket 2"...

Play with it online and you'll be pleasantly surprised how useful that website is.

Cheers, William.

Frozen, Frozen, Frozen.............

Finally go into the trim guages today and one is frozen up tight, the other I was able to move slightly after soaking it and using a pair of vice grips. I don't think they would work anyway because the holes on the plastic arms are elongated and don't have a flat spot anymore to move the sensor. They were probably frozen for a while and puting the moto up and down stripped out the holes. Looks like I'll be adding $220 trim sensors to the bill. Something I should have looked into a little deeper upon purchase. Oh well live and learn. At least they seem to be staighforward on replacing.

Anyone ever try to change these out in the water, it looks like it could be done. Only two screws and I already had them off so I know they are not frozen. Comments?

Since my brother runs twin Yummiehas and most of my friends do ... I can opine without remorse that the Yam trim guage AND sender is the most UNRELIABLE gauge/device I have ever seen on a boat or OB motor. 2nd is the Yam fuel gauge, but let's not go there .

Those LCD gauges are poor in design and robustness, it is the sunlight that 'burns' the display so it doesn't read correctly. Me? Heck I'm old fashioned, I'm still using analog gauges. They work!

I overgrease the motor fittings. The grease will break thru seals and surround the trim guage lever. When the grease dries, lever freezes up. For me, about once a year, I use a little WD-40 to loosen old grease and wipe up excess. I blame Yamaha engineering, they should have mounted trim guage lever somewhere else so I can squirt huge amounts of grease without problems. :lol:

Gas guages are to sell boats at boat shows, and to help keep SeaTow in business. Even so, my multi-function guages (another Yamaha innovation) have worked flawlessly on three boats over 10 seasons. All mounted on center consoles in full sun, never covered, except for T-Top which is about 4' above.

I recently installed a Yamaha Fuel Management (another Yamaha innovation) and was concerned it would make my existing 4 yr old guages look old. Believe it or not, my 57 year old eyes cannot tell the difference.

In ten seasons of Yamaha, I have altered one day of fishing due to motor trouble...corroded t-stat (I seldom flush motor).

Now that's what I call reliability. :wink:

Depending on the repair, some can be easily done in shallow water and others are best done on land. I've done both.

Unless leaving things as they are for the time being is risking damage to another part or would make a simple repair more involved or expensive, I'd probably wait until I hauled out for some other reason and do it on land. A working trim guage is just not that critical a feature to me to want to deal with it in water. It's not critical to running the boat, and it's not really precise. Just repeatable, within limitations. (How much does the engine really tilt to make a change in 1 bar on the guage?) But, that's just me. This is my first boat with trim guage so I'm used to not having it, and I still adjust trim by feel based on conditions and how the boat is running.

If I did decide I had to do it in the water, before I'd attempt it I'd jump over and try to scope out just how accessible everything really is. I'm not sure, but I think these senders come with the connector already crimped on to the cable. Routing the cable might be more of a challenge than actually replacing the physical sender. And you might want to deal with that on land rather than in the water.

Good luck

John

I have actually done the whole job once while the boat was in the driveway but didn't want to wait the two weeks for the parts. Had them out and everything but I could not free them up so I put them back with out the arms, why I don't know. I think I am going to wait anyhow. I have many other pressing things to spend money on right now like fuel and fishing.

I'll change them out next spring after I have the winter to save for them. I'll picture doc the process too for CP.

Old problem revisited.

Now that it is getting towards project season I thought I would bring this up again and see if anyone has suggestions for the job and the best place to buy Yammi parts. The boat will come out early December and I have a bunch of little things I need to get done before relaunch in Mar or Apr.

What is the cheapest parts source you guys have found??
I definitly need two new senders, should be interesting next year knowing where the motors actually are.

I just left out the Zuke trim guage on purpose. I don't need it. I can tell by the way the boat is riding...