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Post by rme25v on Nov 10, 2016 18:08:26 GMT -5
I cannot for the life of me understand why the lights on my trailer wont work. Seriously. I have a brand new correctly wired up 4 way, powered converter harness on the truck side. I can confirm its wired up right because the little built in tester LED lights on the connector light up accordingly with different signal (turn, brake, running light) The second I hook it up to the trailer the left light works fine, but I cannot get the right side to work for anything! Ive put on a new light, new wire, and the sonofab**** still wont light up! One thing I did find, is when hooked up the right turn signal LED (on truck harness) lights up indicating a short somewhere. The question is WHERE? I mean its got all new wire, and its 4 freaking wires this isn't some robot at MIT. Im baffled  Can someone please help? I just want this stupid boat trailer legal! Im seriously at the point I might just tape some red flashlights on the damn thing. Good enough right? I should add that these are incandescent dual filament fixtures. Are LED's less problematic? Could the fixture on the other side somehow mess things up even though it appears to work fine? |
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Post by drag4striper on Nov 10, 2016 18:16:02 GMT -5
Check out all your grounds very good.
They can drive you nuts.
My trailer has a road armor coating on it and getting a good ground is a pain. IMO
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Post by rme25v on Nov 10, 2016 18:19:16 GMT -5
Check out all your grounds very good. They can drive you nuts. My trailer has a road armor coating on it and getting a good ground is a pain. IMO I thought about that to, I really wanna try to get this boat in the water over the weekend... Come to think of it the whole trailer is rather roached over with rust haha Ill try that when I got some daylight thanks |
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Post by hotdog on Nov 10, 2016 19:31:24 GMT -5
Does your light wire connecter between truck and trailer have a ground in it? One of my old trailers made the ground connection in the ball hitch itself. Well when that 2" ball gets rusty and the connection doesn't get made until you go 30 miles down the road it ain't good. I would think that kind of ground problem would affect all the lights. Not just the one. Good luck with it.
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Post by mwardncsu on Nov 10, 2016 19:34:09 GMT -5
Could be a ground issue at the light - between the frame and the light fixture as well.
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Post by mwardncsu on Nov 10, 2016 19:35:41 GMT -5
And for no more than wire cost, why not just run dedicated grounds from each fixture to a waterproof junction box near the tounge
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Post by rme25v on Nov 10, 2016 20:45:21 GMT -5
So, the converter box is grounded and has power at the truck side connector.
The trailer light harness is grounded by an eyelet with a self tapping screw (white wire on 4 pin flat connector)
Im gonna try individually grounding the lights themselves instead of that one wire on the connector. Ive fought battles with these lights before, quite honestly they've been rigged up numerous times.
The only thing I can think is that while there is clearly a good ground to the actual harness connector for the left light, Im wondering if the connector is messed up inside and its shorting out the ground on the right side.
I have current all the way back to the light but as soon as I put any kind of load on it...bulb, test light, whatever it wont work. So its gotta be shorted to ground right?
Its almost infuriating, like I put a voltmeter on the wire and it gets power, but thats only if I ground the negative side of the tester on the frame not the ground wire.
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Post by hambone on Nov 10, 2016 21:11:45 GMT -5
So, your trailer lights probably have 2 wires coming off of them. One is usually brown, the other is green or yellow. Brown is for taillights and brake lights. Yellow or green is the actual signal light wire. Most lights get there ground from the bolts on the light that bolts to metal frame of trailer. More than likely what you are experiencing is the lack of a ground on that one side. The best way to fix that is to run a wire from the white wire on your wiring harness to the bolts on the back of the lights, that gives you a direct ground from truck and eliminates the need to rely on a rusty frame to get your ground. It doesent take much of a ground for a meter to read voltage.
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Post by rme25v on Nov 10, 2016 21:46:35 GMT -5
Thanks! Ill give it a try, hopefully that fixes it.
It'd be awesome if I didn't have to hand signal every time I turned right lol
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Post by noreggo on Nov 12, 2016 9:14:34 GMT -5
Take jumper cables attatch from ground on truck to ground and ground wire on trailer. This will tell you if you have ground issue. Good luck I've cussed trailer lights many times.
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Post by rme25v on Nov 12, 2016 17:11:20 GMT -5
Finally got the lights working today!
I ditched the old rotting incandescent fixtures and put some LED ones on.
Found out that there's only a good ground in one spot on the trailer so I ran the grounds all to there finally got em' working.
These LED's are awesome btw I recommend them to anyone. Seriously WAY brighter during the day and 1000 times more reliable. Worth every penny!
Thanks ya'll! Much appreciated.
This boat and trailer has been quite the restoration project lately. I'm hoping Ill have everything in working order soon.
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