Bad relay or a bad switch. money would bet on the relay.
Bill

"Bob" wrote in message
...

This past weekend I pulled into the dock at the launch ramp and could
not get my Volvo 270 outdrive raised. I hopped into the water thinking
that I could lift it manually and then tie it up, but it was locked
down. Not knowing what else to do, I went back out into the lake to
see if I could get it to raise after putting the boat into forward
and/or reverse a few times, thinking that the locking mechanism had
gotten "confused" by the many forward - neutral - forward repetitions
I had to do while waiting my turn to get my boat into the launch ramp
dock. Sure enough, I motor out a little ways, put the boat in nuetral,
shut the engine off, and the motor raises. I repeated this several
times and sometimes it would raise other times it would not. Once I
got about 3 successful attempts in a row, I went back into the dock and
it raised fine. When I got the boat home, I tried looking at the
outdrive while someone else was raising and lowering it, to see if I
could determine what might be causing a problem, but did not see
anything that appeared to lock or unlock the drive.

Anyone have any clues as to what I should look for? I do have an OEM
manual for the outdrive so I will look there and see if I can figure it
out.

Thanks,
Bob