Mercruiser Alpha One Gen II advise needed

[jfkal]

Got an old boat with Mercruiser Alpha One Gen II. Changed the lower unit oil last weekend and found it was very black. Any ideas what that indicates?
Also trin=m & tilt not working: Pump ok, solenoids ok, switches ok. Max. tilt sensor look a bit suspicious. Could that interfere with the operation so that nothing works (not even trim)?

All ideas welcome

Cheers

 

[Fishtigua]

Oil black? Not using Hi Perf oil and only crappy old EP90?

Does it smell iffy?

 

[jfkal]

Smells like the new Quicksilver stuff. But came out black.

 

[ian2008]

The quick silver oil is green when new and turns black in use for some reason.

 

[spannerman]

Trim limit switch should allow the trim to work until the rams have extended a certain length then it cuts the up trim signal. The trim over ride button should then trim up to max, you can try to bypass the limit switch by just unplugging joining the wires that got to the limit sensor, they are the two wires which have identical connectors male-male to female-female.

 

[jfkal]

Hi,
many thanks. Understand now that it is a trim limit and not a tilt limit. So tilt should then always work, right.
How does the system then "know" that the drive is either all up or all down and stop the pump?
Still no movement at all. I have 12V at the transom tilt switch but nothing comes back down to the solennoid :-(.
Thanks
Joerg

 

[spannerman]

The trim limit only works on the up circuit and senses the drives angle changing as you trim up. It stops you trimming too high. The tilt button gives a direct feed to the up relay at any point from full down, the pump will only stopwhen you are at the limit of full up or full down when you release the button. If you have 12v up to the switch and nothing out on the up or down circuit then its a faulty switch or break in the wiring.

 

[jfkal]

Many thanks. That was what I was afraid of.
Rewiring project coming up.