225 Honda OB Trim noise -

My 2005 225 OB - lowering the motor makes a terrible noise. Anyone else experienced this?

First, make sure your hydraulic fluid is full. Lock the engine up using the safety lock on the right side and check your fluid level in the little tank underneath.

You have several large pins in the tilt/trim system, try to find which one is causing the noise. Remove that pin, clean it, check the bushings, and lubricate with a good marine grease. Normally, the culprit is the main tilt tube - the big pin that the motor swivels up and down on. It has a bushing on each end. Those bushings need to be lubricated with a good marine grease. If worn, they should be replaced. Removing that pin and bushings is tricky - you need to suspend the motor vertically both from the leg and the two lift brackets on top of the engine.

Also use a waterproof grease on the end of the two tilt rams where they contact the pads.

Thanks for your responses folks. This is the third time this has happened. Both previous times, first year and third year , Honda replaced the tilt pump that they had to have shipped over from Japan. I'm just starting the process to see if they'll step up again.

Interesting! I've been monitoring this forum for well over 4 years and have never seen a post about a bad hydraulic pump on the 225 or 200. The pump motors fail regularly, including my own, but not the pump itself.

Thanks for the feedback. Does /did yours make a loud noise when they failed? I wish I could figure out a way to attach a video clip that lets you hear the god -awful whine/howl/ whatever that this motor makes as it lowers though the trim adjustment. And it's the third time this motor has done it. Honda told me it was the pump they replaced the two previous times - and they said it had to come all the way from japan- none in north america. Failed in year one, again in year 3 and now year 7.

On my engine, no howl. Just stopped working. Diagnostics indicated pump motor had failed. Replaced pump motor. After that, it was pretty noisey until I got all the air completely purged from the system.

I don't know but it sure sounds like, with that high a failure interval, that something is maybe binding? One of the rams bent? Have you ever struck anything at speed or backed the boat into anything solid while trailering? I would be asking for a completely new tilt/trim unit if not because that sounds like it may have come out of the factory that way.