Tohatsu Tilt Lever Stuck

Hello everyone, .......... Newbie here with a technical question.

I have a older Tohatsu M8B 2 stroke hanging off the back of a 26' sailboat that I recently bought. I am moving the boat to a marina closer to my home tomorrow (9/29/2014). The engine starts and runs pretty well. The problem I have is that the tilt lever will not release so that I can tilt the engine up to get the prop out of the water. The swinging engine mount on my transom is pretty low, so it is hard to get down close enough to see what is going on. I am thinking it might be the typical corrosion from being left in the weather all the time. Have any of you ran into any issues like this? I was told last night that the reverse lock out might be the culprit, but I don't know.

Luckily for me, the engine sits ok in the water when it is lowered with the transom swing bracket .......... it has a very slight (thrusting downward) of about 3-4 degrees which is ok for my my boat.

Any feedback would greatly appreciated/

Respectfully........ John

You must be in F to tilt. Does the tilt lock operate at all, or is it stuck? It's a simple stainless wire on those. Even if the tilt stop lever does not move, the motor should tilt up -- it just won't stay there.

pvanv said:

You must be in F to tilt. Does the tilt lock operate at all, or is it stuck? It's a simple stainless wire on those. Even if the tilt stop lever does not move, the motor should tilt up -- it just won't stay there.

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Thank you for responding pvanv. I did not know that. I had a hard time with it again yesterday but got it to swing. I will go by the boat today and try it in forward.

The lock must engage in R, otherwise you would not be able to back up without the motor pulling up out of the water. However, in F, the motor should tilt freely. Then the tilt stopper just keeps it tilted.

pvanv, I went by the boat today at her new slip to try what you told me. It worked fine as could be. I sat in the cockpit and chuckled after tilting the engine up and down a couple times. The reason for the laughing, was that I was trying to tilt it in neutral but got to tilt anyways after much light tugging up and down before. I am thinking my homemade control extension rods might have bumped the shifter towards forward gear just enough to release it the few times that it did release for me. I know nothing about the history of this engine other than what the previous owner of the boat told me. It had been gone through about a year before he bought the boat. He never ran the engine other than to winterize it. He used the boat for sleeping on during the work week instead of commuting to his home in Richmond.

It pushed the 4600 lb boat pretty smoothly at 2/3 throttle averaging about 3.7 knots for the 20 miles. The engine is worth more than I paid for the boat.

Thank you for the help.

respectfully.....John