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When I put her to bed she worked just fine. I will need to check the batteries again, but they should be fine...now here's what is happening. The tilt on the 9.9 works well, yes it is a smaller motor...but the tilt on the 90 seems to labor and two little wires along the outside of the shaft housing (ground wires I suppose)start to get very hot...I noticed some smoke standing beside the engine when pushing the up button. Tried again this evening...this time I just held them and got hot in a second...what do you think is happening?

Going to make sure the batts are charged, so I know there is proper juice to do the job...in the meantime any ideas?

Sounds like the real ground wire going to the motor has a short in it somewhere so the motor is trying to complete the circuit by grounding through the housing which is a poor connection. Poor connections = resistance = heat, my guess anyway

Bob has it right. check your ground. Clean it

Hey Capt., Try not to get the wires to hot, if the insulation starts to melt it will lose it's abillity to hold the wire strands packed together which in turn increases resistance. I know it is/ may be difficult during testing purposes, a warm wire is not the worst thing, it is not the best thing either, but HOT is BAD. Wires are ussually oversized to carry more amps than what the fuse protecting the circuit is rated for, so in turn if something gets overloaded the fuse will pop before the wire melts, fuse is easier to replace than the wire &/ or harness. Like previously stated check your ground(s) & all the connections. Most of the time the ground is the culprit ( most of the time ).

Let us know how you make out.

Good advice all around...thx everyone! First the batts were not up to snuff and then I made sure all connections clean and tight. It all seems to be working well now...BUT I will take the batts in for a resistance check...they are approaching 5 years...and that is a good life for a batt. Yes hot is not good on a thin wire ga is ? but dia is about 1/16 or less...upon exam I found another ground wire up under the mounting braket...cleaned it too. I suspect it was the batts...as all the wires looked good, connections basically clean and were tight. If anything else comes of thios I'll report! THX PJ

Had her out and happy to report that all is well on the electircal items...it cetainly was the batteries being way tooooo old...plus while doing that I cleaned up the wires and made a plastic buss for all the leads...so if battery needs to come out it is only two wires that need to come off. Plus the bus allows me to keep an eye on any corrosion issues that get hidden at the battery terminal.

Also it was the first time out for the new 9.9...what a sweet motor...she'll push the boat at 7.7 knts with leg up and 6.4 with the leg down on the main engine...plus I can steer with main being down...makes it nice. Now all I have to do is make time to go fishing.