I happened by the rear of my Ranger the other day and saw oil all over the lower unit and the tilt/trim. The tilt/trim unit was leaking pretty badly. I tried to run it up, but it moved very little before gurgling badly. Most of the oil was on the ground.
It had leaked a couple of years ago and I put in some ATF which got it to work properly until now. Maybe the cold weather helped it fail? Anyway, I want to fish soon so it has to be fixed. I looked here and on YouTube for a how to instructional, but did not find any in detail. So, I plan to post pictures as I work it.
I am open to suggestions on how to go about it. Especially if there are any special instructions anyone wants to offer. I have a Seloc book that has some instructions in it. I plan to follow the instructions in it unless someone has better information to offer.
I began a couple years ago to gather parts and a tool to work on the unit, but never did the rebuild then. I did purchase the seal kit but I cannot find where I put it so I would not forget where it was put. That is going to cost me another $86 for a kit.
I also bought a special tool to take the ends off the cylinders. The one I bought was an OTC Gland Nut Wrench 7463 from Summit Racing.
It has 1/4" and 7/32" pins has adjustable diameter and works with a 1/2" drive wratchet. I was not sure it would work so I tested when I bought it. I was concerned about the strength of the tool being adequate to remove the cylinder caps since they had never been removed. But, I was able to loosen both trim cylinder caps without issue. I drilled out by hand two of the holes in the trim cylinder caps to allow the 7/32" pins to be used.
Then I found that the pins are held in by set screws. So, I could have just made some new pins of the proper size from a drill bit and used them instead of drilling the caps. That would have been much easier. I was able to do get the Trim cylinder caps loosened without removing the unit from the engine.
I also found that the unit had to be removed to get to the cap on the lift cylinder. That is when I decided to try the ATF to see if it would help the unit reseal itself.
Yesterday my brother and I removed the unit. We followed the instructions in the Selco book. When it described removing the wiring, it did not give pictures or clear detail of what the connectors looked like. We just followed the lead coming in from the bottom of the engine cover and disconnected all of them to allow us to get the wires out of the hole. One of the connectors is too large for the hole and the wires must be removed from the connector.
Then all the single wires are pulled out of the lower engine cover hole. Now the hole is just barely big enough for the rubber connector that connects the trim limit switch to be squeezed through. It was a very tight fit. Now the wire loom can be removed.
We put a hoist onto the lower unit and used it to raise the lower unit and hold it securely while we removed the unit. (Sorry about the sideways pics. Anyone know how to fix it? I take most of my pictures sideways but these two I had the camera rotated.)
The ground wire attached from the engine mount has to be removed from the pump housing using a 10mm socket. The trim limit switch has to be removed to allow the wires to be removed from the hole in the engine mount.
Then the engine has to be high enough to allow the lift cylinder pin to be removed. Now the lower pin can be removed. This engine is very clean so the pins just pushed out without issue. We also found that the travel limit pin has to be removed to get the unit out. The rubber coated connector in the picture is the one that does not come apart but will barely fit through the lower engine cover hole.
The safety support had to be raised back up while we removed the unit. Then we lowered it and lowered the engine back onto the safety support since it will be several days before we put it back on. The rest of the day was spent driving to a dealer to get the seal kit and some oil.
Snow and very cold temps are expected over night and all day tomorrow. Maybe I will be able to get to cleaning the unit and draining it so I can bring it inside to do the rebuild.