2006 225 Weekender lift ram won't budge

oscar.zulu

New Member
May 25, 2009
3
South Florida
Boat Info
340 Sundancer
Engines
MIE 8.1S Horizon
Hello all,
I'm writing about an issue my brother is having with his Mercruiser Sterndrive... unfortunately I don't have the model number, all I know is that there is an alpha in the name. I'm in miami and the boat is over in Naples just to make troubleshooting even more fun.

The problem is, is that the stern drive will not lower. I went over last week to do maintenance on it for him... did the oil and then went to do the drive oil, and couldn't get the unit to lower. (It's been a couple of months since my brother has used the boat.)
I called a SR service tech who advised me to jump on it while someone else hit the lower button... but that didn't work.
He said the next course of action was to rebuild the lift rams. I'm wondering if anyone has had the same problem and whether it's possible to repair this on my own. The service tech said that this was a common problem, but after scanning 46 pages of threads I haven't seen this to be true.
Thanks in advance!
Oz
 
Last edited:
when you try to hit the trim button to tilt down do you hear the trim motor running? If you do it is the pistons that are frozen. You can try a penetrating oil and let it sit then you would have to try jumping on outdrive while trimming down. Some people will put boat into water start it and put it into fwd while trimming down and give it some throttle ( only problem this way is you will hear your u joints growling at you and could do damage if you keep doing that). if you just hear a click it would probably be a trim solenoid. If it is the solenoid, go to the pump and there is a plastic cover with a phillips screw in the middle, unscrew it and touch the green wire ansd the post on top of it together.
 
Disconnect the hydraulic lines from the bottom of the outter transom plate. If the leg drops you know the rams aren't stuck and the problem must be at the pump.
 

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