2008 Mercury Optimax Bow Trim switch

[Levitts4]

I have a 96 Champion that has been repowered 2 owners prior with a 2008 optimax. The bow trim switch has not worked since owning. I’ve done quite a bit of troubleshooting and found that the switch is good and I’ve ran jumper wires straight to the bl/wht and gr/wht wires coming out of the throttle control box and getting my power straight from the trolling motor lug with no luck. Are those trim wires coming out of the control box attached inside the control to the switch on the throttle? Is it possible when the boat was repowered that those wires inside the control didn’t get hooked up? The throttle trim works fine. My other option is to find the trim wires going into the control box and splicing into those? I also found the wires and traced them all the way back to the control box. With the jumper wires, I was trying to bypass all of the old wiring and test it literally at the trim wires coming out of the control. The bundle of wires coming out of the control at the helm are all going forward. There is another bundle that comes from the back of the boat, which I assume houses the trim wires from the engine and goes into the control and the other bundle going towards the front of the boat are for the forward connections. Thanks in advance for any help.

[EuropeanAM]

WHICH Optimax do you have (horsepower and serial number)?

Colors are pretty simple:

BLUE (or Blue w/white stripe): BLUE SKY- UP

GREEN (or Green w/white stripe): GREEN GRASS- DOWN.

Remaining wire is the power circuit.

[Levitts4]

I’ll have to get the serial number but the HP is a 150. Yeah I know the color code and I’ve found the wires that come out of the throttle control and go towards the front of the boat that probably use to go to the trim gauge and bow trim switch. Right out of the control box they’ve been cut and splice a couple times, so I took jumper wires from bow to where they are spliced out of helm control and got power from trolling motor and when switch is keyed, I still get no actuation. It works from the throttle lever switch. I’m thinking about finding it in the other bundle of wires that come into the throttle box and just splicing into it there.

[EuropeanAM]

“Splicing” can be detrimental to the harness. Might help
if we could see what you are working with.

[Levitts4]

I’ll get some pictures of what I’m seeing, but if “splicing” is detrimental, then this has long been compromised. The blue and green coming out of control box towards the bow have been spliced twice within 2 feet of each other. Probably due to going from Evinrude set up to Mercury engine and harness is my guess. I have no power at the switch at bow on the red wire and it looks like for whatever reason the red wire is cut and “floating” at the helm. I didn’t check power on it but made my own power from trolling motor.

[JOE54]

usually oem switches from boat manufacture get their power from boat harness

[Alex from GA]

All 3 of the trim switches are in parrellel. Wire the front the same as the one on the engine.

[EuropeanAM]

I didn’t check power on it but made my own power from trolling motor.

Power for the trim switches MUST come from the same battery that the engine is connected to.