Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

My new bently has a 90hp merc. It has power tilt and trim. With the boat in the water and the motor tilted all the way down, I'm at a negative tilt angle. I know I can trim the motor up to resolve that. My question is, on the 90hp engine, it the tilt system strong enough or should I add a tilt lock pin?

T&T plenty strong....

It's plenty strong but I added a pin to mine so I don't need to mess with it. I have the exact same motor.

babock wrote:It's plenty strong but I added a pin to mine so I don't need to mess with it. I have the exact same motor.

Sure I understand but I also don't see why you limit your options on motor position? I plane my boat at min trim to which I get best speed at roughly 1/4 trim give or take a tad depending on load and distrobution....

I was thinking of adding a pin for two reasons.
One, to release stress on the t&t cylinder itself but to also insure I didn't trim to a bow down additude. Mostly the first.

Simply not needed.

I never ever ever run my motor with it all the way tucked in. First thing I did before using the pin is lower it all the way and then lift it up. With the pin, I just lower it down to the pin and I am done. The pin is at the start position and I still trim up from there for best speed.

There is a reason they have the pin available and this is exactly why it is.

The pin is not a tilt lock pin. Nothing gets locked in that position.

Sure I realize that the pin is not locking the motor in one position.... To each their own I simply prefer not to in any way limit my options on motor placement. I guess I'm just an old holdover from the planing hull crowd where the tucked in or negative trim angle works at preventing unwanted bow rise when taking off and lessens the chance of prop blow out among other things...

dhsofficer wrote:I was thinking of adding a pin for two reasons.
One, to release stress on the t&t cylinder itself but to also insure I didn't trim to a bow down additude. Mostly the first.

There simply is no need to worry about relieving stress on the Tilt & TRIM as this is what it was designed to do its entire life; holding in place against full throttle pushing forces throughout the entire range of the useful trim angle. Older systems that were only designed to tilt (not trim) the motor out of the water would have made the use of a pin to push against.

Does your boat have a trim gauge?.. you could view the motor position with the gauge if your worried about it... we have a mercury optimax on our boat... it has the sending unit installed on the motor but no gauge on the dash... I'm going to add the gauge this winter... just as a reference. .. when I get the motor trimmed where I want it will be easy to get back to the position if I stop and trim it back down... during the day time I just look back and try to trim the motor parallel to the water surface... at night I can't see the motor to trim it correctly... trim gauge should take care of that issue...

I agree with teecro... that is a hadraulic cylinder trimming the motor.... it is more than strong enough to handle the forces of the motor... why disable it... that's what it was designed for.. I think the trim gauge would solve your concerns. ..

How about when trailering your boats. Do you put a pin in it then?

I have a trim gauge on my 24' Wellcraft cuddy cabin boat. I never ever pay attention to it. I would rather have some other gauge in its place. It didn't work when I first bought my boat so I replaced the sender. Next time the sender goes out, the gauge is gone. A pontoon boat is so much different than a V-hull. My pontoon definitional doesn't need one but I only have a 90Hp on a 21'.