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Hello, looking for some troubleshooting tips. I recently decided to pick up a mint 1977 13' Sport with a 1997 Yamaha 40 on the back to have some fun with this summer. I'm deep in the restoration of a 30' sailboat and was in need of water time. I had an 11' Super Sport as a child and remembered them fondly. This 13' has turned out to be exactly what I needed. Anyway, I took the boat out for her maiden today and was very impressed with how she ran. Plenty fast and handled the chop very well, along with being surprisingly dry. The boat has an aftermarket stainless prop and a whale tail foil. I'm really not sure why it has the foil and I felt it made the trim too sensitive. The only issue the boat had is that the power trim won't raise the engine when at anything beyond idle speed. It will go down just fine, raise and lower fine on land and will raise in gear at idle speed. The motor sounds like it is straining when I try to trim up at speed. I had to slow down, adjust the trim and then speed up until I found the balance between running to wet and porpoising. Kinda defeats the purpose of power trim. The guy I bought it from said he just replaced the power trim motor. Now I haven't had a powerboat (other than the Achillies dinghy from the sailboat) in 20 years so I'm not a pro at figuring out the power trim system. I'm gonna get a manual for it but figured I'd ask and see if anyone has any tips, ideas or experience with this issue. The motor and trim unit is a 1997 Yami, 2 stroke electric start power tilt/trim. Thanks

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Upon reading similar issues, it seems these things have pressure valves that lock the outboard. Is it possible that the big whale fin is exerting to much force at speed for the pump to overcome? The trim is REALLY sensitive at speed. If I down trim for more than a second at a time, the boat violently digs a sponson in and veers to the right. Kinda afraid to take my family out in this thing. Something tells me this isn't normal for Whalers most popular boat. I don't remember my 11' SS being this sensitive. As a matter of fact, I remember it being exceptionally solid.

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A second at a time is way too long for the trim adjustments. Try just flipping it for as short a time as your thumb can manage. It may take more than one adjustment, but keep the adjustments as short as you can.

My 2010 13' Whaler has a whale tail on it and I haven't experienced any of the issues the OP mentioned.

I've had good luck with the trim adjustment by putting the trim all the way down before I accelerate from an idle. As the boat is making the transition from displacement speed to planing speed you should be trimming up and pulling back on the throttle. Practice will tell you how much to trim up for the "first adjustment". After the boat gets up on plane then make very minor adjustments to the trim, trimming it up until the boat starts to porpoise. At that point you've gone too far so just flip the trim adjustment down a time or two to stop the porpoising.

Listen to the motor and watch your speed and rpm's. When you're properly trimmed the sound of the motor will smooth out, the rpm's will climb (without any further adjustment to the throttle) and the speed will pick up.

The sweet spot for trim adjustment will depend on your load, water conditions and your speed. You'll soon learn when it's right because the sound of the motor will tell you.

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Hello GFC, man I'd love to be able to do that. Unfortunately, the power trim won't trim up at anything beyond idle speed. The trim motor makes a straining sound, as if it is trying to move an immovable force. I'm getting pretty good at guessing where to have the trim set before I take off. I lose the sweet spot every time I return to the dock and raise the motor out of the water. I've got a manual in route and have been reading up on power trim and tilt systems. Of the three parts, the electrical system seems fine. I get action whenever I took the trim buttons. By action I mean something happens. The trim works fine at idle speed and with the engine off. But even slightly beyond idle speed, nothing on the up trim except sound of the pump motor straining. These systems are not that complicated. It almost seems like either a check valve is stuck somewhere or the lift cylinder is faulty. The guy I bought it from said he just replaced the pump motor. I don't like just changing out parts so I figured maybe someone else had seen this before..?.?.

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Have you checked the fluid level in your trim pump? Not sure where it is on your model of Yamaha but a service manual will tell you. If the previous owner replaced the trim pump, that would be the first thing I'd check. Next I would go through the hydraulic lines to make sure those are routed correctly and there's no crimps that would restrict hydraulic fluid flow from the pump to the hydraulic trim ram. Lastly, if that fin makes your trim too sensitive, try removing it and seeing how the boat responds. Boats shouldn't need those silly things.

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WE: Yeah I kind of agree. Been consciously around boats since about 1985 and I never found myself thinking, "man I really need to put fins on my outboard".....I figured that if it was needed the factory would have done it. Though I must say, my 9'6 Achilles with a John 7.5 suffered badly from ventilation and difficulty in planing when I removed theSE sport 200 foil that came on the engine when I bought it. But air keel inflatables are an odd breed of boat anyway.

I'm still waiting on the manual but I just find it strange that the trim works perfectly, and I mean absolutely flawless, when out of gear at idle, when the engines off and if I am moving forward at minimum idle speed. I would think if the hoses are wrong then it wouldn't work so well......not to mention, if the fluid was low, wouldn't that create an issue at the last 75% raise when I'm raising the engine out of the water? I had my 130 pound wife stand on the foil and it lifted her right out of the water along with the engine. Now I'm pretty mechanically inclined, been ASE certified in everything except transmissions for many years, but this has me stumped. Agreed that I'm kind of going blind until the service manual gets here but man, this is simply a pump motor and hydraulic cylinder......can't be much there to go wrong....if the switches work, the pump motor is new, and the fluid is at the correct level.....well....the lift cylinder is pretty much the last in the line. Not to mention its the most difficult to replace out of all the components. The previous owner probably said " well the pump motor didn't fix it, I'm selling it anyways and it works on the trailer.....the @ell with changing the lift cylinder".............

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I may be wrong but it sounds like a bad electrical connection on the lift side. It's ok until the boat starts pounding a bit, which will exploit a bad connection.

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MG: I went through the electrical system yesterday. I think the problem is to consistent to be an electrical connection. There is a very specific set of parameters that once achieved result in it not working. Looking around at parts listings however, I may be faced with another issue. Most of these parts are obsolete. This is my first Yamaha engine. I've always had Johnson/Evinrude motors on my small boats. Parts are dime a dozen and I find parts for my 1976 6:-P and 1982 7.5 just as easily as someone looking for 2006 and 2012......I've always heard that people love Yamaha outboards. Do they just throw them away after a few years?????

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And we may have a conclusion....I posted this question over on a Yamaha forum and the guys immediately pointed out that my Yamaha C40 PLRV outboard came with only tilt.....not trim. I would never have thought that an outboard motor with remote, electric start, up and down trim buttons on the throttle handle; couldn't be trimmed while underway because it only tilts......hmmmm

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Heh, I have a C40PLRU.. and was amazed to find the same thing! Tilt only makes no sense and the cost to have a trim motor on there couldn't have been that different at the factory ;)

That said - have you kept the motor, or found another solution?