First off I have 1990 175 tf nitro 17.5 foot with a Johnson 150. The lower unit has oil or gear lube on it the rim of of the unit. Enough to wear the transom savor is sticky with gear lube, could the lower seal be bad? Also the trolling motor spins backwards any way to diagnose this and fix it? Motorguide 55lbs 12v.

Btw the oil/ gear lube slowly drips from the rim with it connects not down the fin.

Sounds like a seal ,Get it in to a shop ...

Sounds like the cable on the tm is connected wrong somewhere + on - which makes it run reverse

Battery cables to TM is hooked up backwards and its a good chance that exhaust residue coming out of the lower unit. If the lube in the LU is black or clean gear oil, with no sings of water, I would just check the level regularly to make sure it's not leaking.

Look at the cables running from the TM to the battery there all proper is negative to negative positive to positive. I'm going to look. Maybe the switch on the foot pedal has a backwards wired.

I'll upload a picture of where the oil or gear lube is leaking. It might be unhurt gas oil it's jet black and my oil injection seems to be running pretty high, I also got a monometer to check the syncing of the carbs due to an idling issue, changed the fuel filter, and plugs.

The monometer is probably not going to do you a whole lot of good. Paying careful attention to the butterflies in the carbs and getting each of them to fully close and start to open at the same time is the critical part of a proper link and sync. I have spent 30 minutes just tweeking the linkage adjustment between the carbs and getting the cam roller to hit just right.

A proper link and sync is very time consuming if you do it right.

Also understand, once you get it right, DO NOT use the linkage stops to adjust the idle, you just throw everything back off again. Idle is adjusted by the timing linkage rod going to the timer base once a proper link and sinc is completed.

Pretty sure what you are seeing is exhaust residue. Leave the motor down and sometimes you have a big black spot under it with a black line running down the gear case and skegg.

Hmmm rewired the tm, some idiot ran the wires from the pedal to motor backwards. As far as idling, it's really embarrassing trying to idle in the launch and having the motor die. Anything above idle is fine, and I noticed the idle os high. You Can Hear The motor Hiccup right before it stalls. Kinda frustrating.