Boat tilt/trim motor getting hot and bonding wires melting insulation

[[email protected]]

My Tilt/Trim motor on my boat gets very hot after only cycling the
engine the full
range a couple of times. also the bonding wires on my outboard are
getting extremly hot and melting the insulation. None of this occurs
on my other engine. I'm wondering if the motor ismessed up and is
shorting out... if so what do I replace? Armature, brushes, breaker,
springs???

Thanks

 

[Homer J Simpson]

My Tilt/Trim motor on my boat gets very hot after only cycling the
engine the full
range a couple of times. also the bonding wires on my outboard are
getting extremly hot and melting the insulation. None of this occurs
on my other engine. I'm wondering if the motor ismessed up and is
shorting out... if so what do I replace? Armature, brushes, breaker,
springs???

I assume there's a gearbox. Lubricant?

 

[[email protected]]

Yea, ATF is the lube for the tilt trim part. not sure how it all
works.. I did not have any problem till i cycled the engine up and down
for a while last night, then all of a sudden i noticed the bonding wire
smoking and was melting the insulation.

 

[Homer J Simpson]

Yea, ATF is the lube for the tilt trim part. not sure how it all
works.. I did not have any problem till i cycled the engine up and down
for a while last night, then all of a sudden i noticed the bonding wire
smoking and was melting the insulation.

Unless this is an old unit I'd have it checked for binding or jamming.

 

[default]

My Tilt/Trim motor on my boat gets very hot after only cycling the
engine the full
range a couple of times. also the bonding wires on my outboard are
getting extremly hot and melting the insulation. None of this occurs
on my other engine. I'm wondering if the motor ismessed up and is
shorting out... if so what do I replace? Armature, brushes, breaker,
springs???

Thanks

I'd go with Simpson too - more likely it is mechanical. This motor
only turns a hydraulic pump(?) not much to go wrong there lubrication
wise. There's a pressure relief that you can hear open at the
extremes of its travel? Its a pretty fool proof system so look for
something like corrosion in the pivot bolt assembly.

If it is the motor, you'd only find out what to replace when you took
it apart, looked at it for obvious problems, and ohmed out the
armature. A shorted or open armature would cause a lot of sparking so
a commutator segment or two would show signs of arcing - but that
would also slow the motor a lot.

If this is two identical motors why not time them? Presumably the hot
one is taking longer to raise/lower?

"bonding" wires??? Do you mean bonding as in wires connecting the
metal parts to zincs or a solid state current source to prevent
galvanic corrosion?

Do these wires get hot when the trim tilt is moving and only then? If
these are galvanic corrosion bonding wire and getting hot when the
motor cycles that may just indicate the ground to the motor is open
and current is finding another way to get where it is needed.

 

[default]

Yea, ATF is the lube for the tilt trim part. not sure how it all
works.. I did not have any problem till i cycled the engine up and down
for a while last night, then all of a sudden i noticed the bonding wire
smoking and was melting the insulation.

Automatic Transmission Fluid is not the lube it is the hydraulic fluid
you are dealing with a hydraulic pump and (2-4?) pistons.

The motors normally run warm and have internal thermal overloads to
protect them from idiot boaters. If you have some idea of how heavy
that motor is and how much effort it takes to tilt it you'd understand
how a small motor can get hot with the effort. Add some hardened
grease or lack of grease in the pivot and you have a problem.

 

[Ken Weitzel]

Automatic Transmission Fluid is not the lube it is the hydraulic fluid
you are dealing with a hydraulic pump and (2-4?) pistons.

The motors normally run warm and have internal thermal overloads to
protect them from idiot boaters. If you have some idea of how heavy
that motor is and how much effort it takes to tilt it you'd understand
how a small motor can get hot with the effort. Add some hardened
grease or lack of grease in the pivot and you have a problem.

Hi...

If they published a duty cycle for it, I suspect it would look
something like 5 or 10 seconds on, followed by sufficient time
to cool back down to ambient... 15 minutes or a half hour or so?

Take care.

Ken

 

[default]

Hi...

If they published a duty cycle for it, I suspect it would look
something like 5 or 10 seconds on, followed by sufficient time
to cool back down to ambient... 15 minutes or a half hour or so?

Take care.

Ken

"trim" is a big hydraulic cylinder, that could probably take some
action before the motor overheats, but "tilt" is made with a small
bore cylinder to move the motor fast.

To make matters worse, a lot of the thermal overloads are really
cheesy and fail - to be "repaired" by bypassing them, then the wires
do smoke . . .

 

[John Todd]

Yea, ATF is the lube for the tilt trim part. not sure how it all
works.. I did not have any problem till i cycled the engine up and down
for a while last night, then all of a sudden i noticed the bonding wire
smoking and was melting the insulation.

You said the _Bonding_ wire was heating up. I would check the ground
(powr negative, presumeably) wire to the _motor_ for bad connection.
Motors run hot on low supply volts. I agree with Ken tho...

 

[James Sweet]

You said the _Bonding_ wire was heating up. I would check the ground
(powr negative, presumeably) wire to the _motor_ for bad connection.
Motors run hot on low supply volts. I agree with Ken tho...

AC induction motors run hot on low voltage, series wound universal and
permanent magnet DC motors don't.

I suspect this is just a matter of duty cycle exceeded.