Sometimes your Evinrude or Johnson outboard motor might not trim up or down from the control box. There are some steps you can take to troubleshoot the issue. Start by trying to trim the motor up or down from the motor switch. If you can trim it from the motor then you may need to check the control box switch / contacts by taking apart the control box at the front of the boat.
If you can’t trim up or down from the motor switch, then you can remove the engine cover and look for 2 relays. Usually you will have trouble with just one side (Trim up OR trim down), so locate the 2 trim relays, which will be near your air intake usually, and then swap the 2 relays. If one side of your trim (that wasn’t working before) starts working, then it is one of your relays at fault. As was the case in this example. In this example I have OMC control box, and a Johnson / Evinrude 115 V4 Looper motor. Just one of the relays was stuffed, but I replaced both and kept the old one as a spare.
If swapping the relays doesn’t change anything, then it could be a wiring problem or a problem with the contacts going into the relay holder. In which case you can inspect the wiring, or spray some contact cleaner into the relay holders to remove any corrosion that might have built up.
Lastly, the control box often will have dirty contacts inside behind the switch. Taking apart the control box and just checking / contact cleaning the contacts for the switches is recommended.
omcjonsonjohnson
