'84 NS 50B Trim Motor Shorted Out?

Hello all! I believe my trim motor is shorted out. Prior to disassembly, the trim motor was very slow and the wires got extremely hot, barely enough to move the motor a couple inches. I took the motor apart and found an exposed wire. While repairing it, I only had the "up-trim" and ground wire connected and I gave it a try. It worked great! I connected all three wires and tried it... I was right back to where I started. A fire hazard and no trim. I also only connected to the down trim it worked just like the up-trim (great), but once I connected the other wires, it failed.

There is a bit, not a lot, of corrosion in the housing, but no other wires looked exposed. Are there any other tests I can run to isolate the problem? What am I missing?

Strange. There's only UP, Down, and ground. You could take it to a local 12v auto electric shop.

Agreed! Hopefully it doesn't turn to that. I'm still tracing wires, but this task is new to me, so the growing pains are huge.

I think something may be wired wrong. Odds are your motor only has 2 wires; The up and down solenoids reverse the DC polarity to the motor.