Yamaha tilt and trim brush dust problem

[FishStretcher]

Well, I think I found the culprit. Or at least another failure mode. I have the Yamaha 703 control, with the thumb mount tilt/trim rocker. It came on the boat with ethe 1988 outboard, I didn't swap in anything newer when I put the 2000 model year Yamaha on it and sold the 1988 outboard.

When I got to the boat today, it was trimmed ALL THE WAY UP. It pushed thru the splashwell gate, scratched the cowling and tor out some barrel bolts on thesplashwell gate. My first thought was vandals. Shame on me for leaving the battery on, but I was letting the solar panel top up the batteries, and only the trim is "hot" then, unless you have the ignition key.

We had hellacious rains this week, and the rocker switch for the trim either was, and definitely now IS sticky in the UP position. I don't know, but I think I might have bumped it close to the on position, or the PFD I had hanging on the controls blew against the switch in the wind, and then it stuck. So it ran to the up position and kept running. I am pretty sure I fried the commutator this time (it looked ok last week). No fuse blew, but the battery is ok and the motor doesn't spin when the switches are actuated. Well, it spins a little if you bang it with a hammer. But I can't imagine the brush holders aren't toast, and the motor commutator bars.

Looks like a call to arco for a motor. I have a spare 703 control, so I will swap switches (it looks easy).

That was a pretty random failure!