I bought a used boat with a 80 mercury on it.  It has some wiring problems.

Got everything working, but I have one wire I can't figure out.  The wire has been disconnected and looks like it was a male , female type connector.  Female part is gone.  Wire runs from male part back to the power tilt cylinder housing.There is what looks like some kind of switch there with a spring loaded button.  If the motor is in the down position it would push the button in and let it come back out if it is in the up  position.

Does anyone know what this switch is for.  The power tilt still works without it being hooked up.  I have not found the emergency kill switch on this thing.  Could it be part of that that has been disconnected?  Could it be some kind of preset for setting the motor where you get up on plane best?

Any help will be appreciated

cwb60

That is an trim kill switch that wouldn't let you trim the motor up too high when you're running.  Once the motor reached the height where the switch disengaged you were forced to use the tilt switch to continue bringing the motor up.

Either the wire broke or it was purposefully eliminated.  Some guys would disable and jump it out so they could trim their motor out beyond the max or others did it that were running in super shallow water and wanted to get the motor way out of the water when running.

My old Tower of Power 150 Merc had one of those, I disabled it as well.

Thanks Glen, now that makes sense.  It will make the rest of the wiring easier now.  

cwb60