Tilt/trim hydraulic system stopped working. Can I lower motor manually?

Question

I have a Mercury 70 HP with a tilt/trim hydraulic system, which just stopped working. Is their a way to lower the motor manually?

Answer 1

For some of them, there is a bleed s***w, but for some of them there wasn't, so the only way for you to find out is to look for it. When the engine is up, you should see the little lift cylinder on the transom that lifts/lowers the motor. Look on either side of the cylinder or the hydraulic motor and look for a s***w that stands out from all of the others. That one is more than likely the bleed s***w. Just unscrew it little by little until the engine starts to lower down (1/4 turn at a time). Just remember, if you bleed it down, you won't be able to access the lift parts to fix/replace them! They bleed down quite easily, but they don't like to go up at all. My advice to you would be to fix it while it is up. You can always take a small hammer and tap the hydraulic motor while someone else hits the switch up and down repeatedly, that sometimes seems to work. Besides that, just replace it and kiss the problem good bye. Good Luck

Answer 2

No

Answer 3

yes there is a box ubove the back of the moter (on the back) look around it on one of the leads coming fromit  and theres a wire going to the moter (with 2 wires) in it down to the tilt moter , take the wires out of the plug , then take a 12volt battery with 2 wires and conect them to the battery, thentake the other ends and tuch the to the 2 wires you unpluged to see if it stll runs , if it runs then wait untill the moter goes up or down , you can switch them to see whitch way it may go , (up or Down) good luck!!!!

Answer 4

As Mark G said, I would suggest leaving it up so that you can work on it easier, or be able to trailer it if you can't fix it yourself and need to bring to mechanic.  Most cases, it is just a bad solenoid, which can be an easy fix.

Answer 5

There will be a manual release s***w.  Mine is on the right side, almost hidden in a hole on the mount.  It is not the s***w on the cylinder, under the motor, since it has to be somewhere accessible even when the motor is down.  Back the s***w out and the motor will go down.

The manual release means you won't need to do anything with the electrical system.  All power tilt/trim systems have this same manual release as far as I know.

Answer 6

You should be able to. Isn't there a s***w on the side of the engine where the hydraulic pump is to release the pressure and let it drain? Left side?