STBD Drive wont trim down when making way

oGaryo

oGaryo

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This may be a blip but on the way back from the IOW this afternoon I found I wasn't able to trim the stbd drive down.

I'd had both drives fully down from West Bramble up to Calshot Spit in a lumpyish head sea doing approx 20kts. On turning into Soton Water I had the tide up the rear so raised the bow to +2 on each drive but when wanting to drop to +1 further up the river, the stbd drive wouldn't lower (I could raise it further though).

Came off the plane at Hythe Pier and could lower the drive again.

I've checked the reservoir levels on getting back to Ocean Village and noted the stbd drive reservoir is slightly lower than the port side but not by alot and is still mid way between the Max and Min marks. All 4 rams were replaced 2 years ago so I don't suspect them. Could I have air in the system? or maybe the attitude of the boat when bringing the bow up resulted in the reservoir level going below the min mark losing enough pressure so as not to be able to bring the drive in but allow it to be raised with water pressure outside the boat helping it along?

What's your thoughts please, top up the levels when next down the boat or could there be something more sinister at play.

thanks
 
You dont say if the drive pump was running or not, but if not, maybe just an electrical connection, mine were a bit intermitent when I first had them, leading to one stopping completely eventually.
Cleaning the connectors in the engine bay, strapped to the trim motors in my case, sorted the problem.
 
I'm not sure what the details of your installation are, but on mine (DPH legs) each leg has a trim pump, which in turn is controlled by two relays, which are controlled by the little EVC trim panel at the helm. The port power pack installation is fairly sensible and doesn't give any probs; the stbd power pack though is pretty much in the bilge between the engines and suffers a bit with corrosion. The relays do give up on these, so the first thing I'd do is pull the relays and clean the contacts. Second thing (from experience) is wiggle the wires going into the power pack, on mine they'd gone brittle and caused an intermittent connection failure. I rewired it in the end.
 
oGaryo said:
losing enough pressure so as not to be able to bring the drive in but allow it to be raised with water pressure outside the boat helping it along?
Click to expand...
Gary I've never owned/worked on outdrives so my knowledge is limited but I'm wondering if you have your logic mixed up above. Unless I'm misreading you I think you are thinking that the forward motion of the boat will tend to make the drives want to lift up, and so the hydraulics work less hard when raising the drives. But in fact it is the opposite isn't it? I mean the drives push the boat along and so no work need be done by the hydraulics to lower the drives; all the hard work work is done by the hydraulics when you want to raise the drives

Sorry if I'm not reading your post right though!
 
dpb said:
You dont say if the drive pump was running or not, but if not, maybe just an electrical connection, mine were a bit intermitent when I first had them, leading to one stopping completely eventually.
Cleaning the connectors in the engine bay, strapped to the trim motors in my case, sorted the problem.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comments, I'll get the electrics checked out too next time I am down there. I couldn't hear the pump running but then, I was doing 20 odd knts and simply wanted to get home. 3 days at the IOW festival and I was feeling the need to get home rather than fix the boat :)
 
jimmy_the_builder said:
I'm not sure what the details of your installation are, but on mine (DPH legs) each leg has a trim pump, which in turn is controlled by two relays, which are controlled by the little EVC trim panel at the helm. The port power pack installation is fairly sensible and doesn't give any probs; the stbd power pack though is pretty much in the bilge between the engines and suffers a bit with corrosion. The relays do give up on these, so the first thing I'd do is pull the relays and clean the contacts. Second thing (from experience) is wiggle the wires going into the power pack, on mine they'd gone brittle and caused an intermittent connection failure. I rewired it in the end.
Click to expand...

Mine have the trim switches on the control levers but will no doubt have relays somewhere in the system so will get those checked out too.. thanks :)
 
oGaryo said:
Thanks for the comments, I'll get the electrics checked out too next time I am down there. I couldn't hear the pump running but then, I was doing 20 odd knts and simply wanted to get home. 3 days at the IOW festival and I was feeling the need to get home rather than fix the boat :)
Click to expand...

At the severe risk of teaching you to suck eggs, remember the engines don't need to be running for the legs to be trimmable, although in my particular installation both ignitions must be on and the EVC panel enabled.
 
jfm said:
Gary I've never owned/worked on outdrives so my knowledge is limited but I'm wondering if you have your logic mixed up above. Unless I'm misreading you I think you are thinking that the forward motion of the boat will tend to make the drives want to lift up, and so the hydraulics work less hard when raising the drives. But in fact it is the opposite isn't it? I mean the drives push the boat along and so no work need be done by the hydraulics to lower the drives; all the hard work work is done by the hydraulics when you want to raise the drives

Sorry if I'm not reading your post right though!
Click to expand...

Hi John, I think there's an extremely simple way of answering this one.. here goes: your logic = correct. my logic = incorrect :)
 
oGaryo said:
Mine have the trim switches on the control levers but will no doubt have relays somewhere in the system so will get those checked out too.. thanks :)
Click to expand...

They will almost certainly be on the hydraulic power pack. Little black automotive relays. Two quid off ebay probably but about £30 from a main dealer :D
 
jimmy_the_builder said:
At the severe risk of teaching you to suck eggs, remember the engines don't need to be running for the legs to be trimmable, although in my particular installation both ignitions must be on and the EVC panel enabled.
Click to expand...

yep, got that buddy.. just a point of note, leaving Cowes, all was good. the stbd drive was also good by the time I got to the West Bramble cardinal as i took both drives down to -4 at that point. somewhere between West Bramble and half way up Soton Water the stbd drive got stuck at +2 and then +4 when I tried lifting it further on realising it wasn't going down any longer. As soon as I came off the plane on reaching the 6kt limit opposite Hythe Pier, I regained downward control which leads me to think it may have something to do with the reservoir level i.e. I regain control when the boat levels out
 
jimmy_the_builder said:
They will almost certainly be on the hydraulic power pack. Little black automotive relays. Two quid off ebay probably but about £30 from a main dealer :D
Click to expand...

I'll take a look, even if it doesn't turn out to be the issue, it sounds like they're worse maintaining if they're prone to rust especially considering the steering rack is in the same area and I recently replaced that whole unit due to corrosion to the hydraulic pipes and ram fittings
 
oGaryo said:
yep, got that buddy.. just a point of note, leaving Cowes, all was good. the stbd drive was also good by the time I got to the West Bramble cardinal as i took both drives down to -4 at that point. somewhere between West Bramble and half way up Soton Water the stbd drive got stuck at +2 and then +4 when I tried lifting it further on realising it wasn't going down any longer. As soon as I came off the plane on reaching the 6kt limit opposite Hythe Pier, I regained downward control which leads me to think it may have something to do with the reservoir level i.e. I regain control when the boat levels out
Click to expand...

Aha gotcha. Sorry. I guess I'd just suspect an electrical gremlin cos I've had that a couple of times on the drives on two different boats; but by contrast I've never had hydraulic probs with the trim.
 
I had this exact same thing on FP.
Mine turned out to be an intermittent relay fault, that became much easier to diagnose when it stopped working altogether :-)
The relays are on the a block near the pump, and are easy to change.
 
Gary - I had a similar problem, eventually traced it to the Volvo helm control panel, which I suspect was the same type as you have. Easy to check the trim pump. There are two wires to the pump that control drive up and down - blue and green. Make green +ve and drive trims down, make blue +ve and drive trims up. Don't make them both +ve or you'll initiate self destruct :) With ignition on you just need to rig a wire off the battery with a bare end that you can touch into the connector to make each colour hot in turn. It's easier than it sounds, just watch you don't short it to the engine block! If the drive trims up/down you have a busted switch or dodgy wiring. If it doesn't, pump or relay busted.
 
FlowerPower said:
I had this exact same thing on FP.
Mine turned out to be an intermittent relay fault, that became much easier to diagnose when it stopped working altogether :-)
The relays are on the a block near the pump, and are easy to change.
Click to expand...

+1 on the relays. Jimmy and David on the money, I reckon. Cheap auto motive relay, almost certainly dirty or damp spade connectors. Most of us started carrying a couple of spares, clean the terminals, splash of WD40/switch cleaner and don't forget to check the wire connections at the box they can corrode too. You might have to remake the connections.

Quick check is to swap them from port to starboard, if fault moves, it's the relay, if not, check the connectors. :)

RR
 
Bugger. Cause identified as leaking ram (s). Slight oil film on water when operating the trim and a burring noise can be heard. Ram overhaul on next lift out sometime soon. Swapped relays over to no avail. Boats... love/relationship :)
 
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