trailer lights

I hate working on trailer lights! A couple of relatives and I own a gooseneck trailer, no problems with joint ownership. I got the trailer to haul some hay and stupidly broke the 6 prong connector while turning short. Got a new connector and started trying to fix it. The first day I worked on it was rainy and cold, but installed the connector and found that right turn signals and brake lights did not work and that the electric brakes did not work. One of the problems was that the instructions with the new connector called for the white wire to be ground, and the wireing did not have a white wire. Tried black which seems to be right.
Yesterday was nice and sunny and I worked on it again, for a long time. This trailer has a junction box half way down the frame with connections labeled by having the different functions labeled with wire color molded into the box. Used the probe with light, clamp, and sharp point. Lack of unrusted bare metal and the little clamp jaws being weak led me to get a piece of flat brass(obtained by flattening a cartridge case), filing a bare spot, and clamping the brass to the frame with a small c clamp. Worked fine, still no right turn signals, or lights on the right side. Modified my probe technique by clamping the little jaws to bare wire and pushing the sharp end of the probe into the painted/rusty metal. Went to the rear of the trailer, found broken wires, tested and found fire on one. Spliced the wires, lights and signals work. Apparently one of us had drug the rear of the trailer over something and broke the wire. Tied the wires up out of harms way.

Brakes still don't work. Suspect the controller in the truck. In furthur checking, found I had run the battery down, charged battery a while, by this time it was about dark so quit so spent time raking leaves, another least favorite job.

Today it is raining. Did I mention I hate working on trailer lights?

KEH

I agree with you 100% between my brother and I we have five trailers none of the plugs would interchange on any truck, three different trucks, it seems like half the time electric brakes don't work, something that usually did work such as surge breaks New York State banned. Every morning it's a guessing game will the trailer lights work today? they worked fine yesterday trailer sits overnight next they don't work, it's always something Chinese connector , bad ground or something happened to the light fixture. Yep I hate trailer working on trailer lights too!

You mean trailer lights are supposed to work?

Hahahaha, that was a good one! Lmao

I went and bought some magnetic lights that work good for trailer lights when your in a bind and need to haul something and for what ever reason you can't or don't have trailer lights

Nothing better than fixing lights thst a customer fixed first. Lol Made a lot of money on that over the years.

I fought the lights on an 18' flatbed for years.

I finally figured it out. The trailer is a tilt bed, and even though the lights are grounded to the pickup, to get to the lights the ground had to go through the rusted bolts where the tilt bed hinges. I installed a wire bypassing the tilt hinges and the lights have worked perfectly ever since.

It only took me 20 years to figure that out.

Got the magnetic lights too. Very useful.

KEH

I rewired my trailer last year, all new lights, junction box, trailer plug etc.

I couldn't get the lights or brakes to work correctly, turned out that 7 pin trailer plugs do not follow the published trailer wiring color codes.

What a pain.

Rich

Have a small tilt bed with the same problem, haven't solved it yet. I have been told by people who know more than I do that grounding is the main cause of trailer light problems. Running over something and breaking a wire must be the number 2 problem, I've done that on other trailers.

Then there's the problem of the light fixture leaking water into it, or the lens or housing cracking. If that happens, you may as well get a new fixture.

KEH

Couple different pins the brake can be on if you look at conversion diagrams

Soooo many 'standards'

I use em for everything moving equipment around and for trailers that don't have lights or for when trailers decide to act up and I need to get home and the lights have quit for some reason .

There are only 6 prongs and generally the only variable is whether the brakes are on the center or on the spare,most now are the brakes on the spare and the charging wire to the battery on he breakaway on the center.

Bad ground and butt connectors are the major bug-a-boos that I have found. Whenever I have a trailer light problem, I solder & then heat shrink every connection that is anywhere in the wiring. Then run a separate ground wire to every light on the trailer with the ground wire soldered to the ground side of the bulb holder. After doing that over the past 10 years, the only light issue I have ever had with any of my five trailers is a burned out or broken bulb. Takes a while to "get 'er done", but I know that every time I hook something up, lights will work, unless a bulb has gone by-by! (My $0.02 worth. jal-SD)

i bough a earlish trailer built in 1995 Mt pleasant tex. new,, and to date no wiring problems the thing about this trailer is that it is doubled wired hot wire to each light and ground wire to each light ground back to truck plug it is the only way to go some my customer have goose neck trailer hot wire and grounder to frame there always having problems

RCP, there is RV wiring for seven pin trailer plugs and 7 pin over the road wiring, if you're using the factory one on your pickup it is the RV code. Found this out when the head shop guy was wiring up the new pickups like his RV, and the company uses the same trailers between pickup and some of the over the road trucks, he had 30 or so pickups wired wrong. I was the one to point it out to the "expert".

Jay,
When did NYS ban surge brakes?Nearly all boat trailers and as far as I know U Hauls are still using surge brakes.

Replacing the lights with LED Stoplights will greatly reduce problems with the lights.
They don't require much current, so stay Bright..
About the only real complaint I have is they don't make any Heat to melt the Snow of them..!!
Ron.

I was wiring the plug to the trailer, and used the wiring code I found on the vendors website where I bought the plug. The trailer plug I bought did not match the trailer code, when I asked the supplier, they said yes they are not the same, happens all of the time.

Perhaps "big" trailers use a different code than "small" trailers, but it was a pain to fix.

Thanks
Rich

I was told this in the 90s, maybe it's not true, but I never seen
a trailer sold around here now with surge brakes anymore.

I just did a quick Google search there banned on commercial
vehicles.

And the throw in the fact somebody just wired it anyway they could with no regard to what is right or wrong

(quoted from post at 20:00:47 01/02/15)
Replacing the lights with LED Stoplights will greatly reduce problems with the lights.
They don't require much current, so stay Bright..
About the only real complaint I have is they don't make any Heat to melt the Snow of them..!!
Ron.

Click to expand...

Yeah no heat is my biggest complaint with the LED lights and living in Alaska it is a real pain in the posterior; it don't even need to be snowing for them to pack up with snow. Although, I do like the amount of light they put out in the warmer months.
The best idea I have had with wiring trailers is to use extension cords they are double insulated and use over sized ground wires and lots of them. If you use the cheep butt connecters solder them using resin core solder only (acid core causes corrosion - the death of wires). I also use junction boxes at major junctions and place them inside the frame channel. Doing it this way is a pain but only one time, and always remember to leave a couple extra wires for future use. One last thing is to clean the grounding spots well and use the stuff electricians use on main power leads coming into a junction box, I forgot the name of it but it is an anti-corrosive cream and comes in a 1/4 or 1/2 oz tube.
I have also seen people use a dab of silicone on the connections once they were done which I thought was a good Idea as well.

I have 2 sets of magnetic lights, with both sets, one light is bright enough to see, the other light is so dim that you can barely see it in the dark. Chris

(quoted from post at 04:51:23 01/03/15) I have 2 sets of magnetic lights, with both sets, one light is bright enough to see, the other light is so dim that you can barely see it in the dark. Chris

Click to expand...

Bad connection.. most likely a bad ground.

Bonus!

The first thing I always do and because many wires and codes on trailers and tucks are butchered , is get my portable battery booster , a test light and jumper wire . Start testing what wire on the trailer is doing what and what connection on the truck is doing what . Hopefully the wire colors match but not always -- good luck . I have rewired 6 pin to 7 prongs with no problem .
Larry -- Ont

Larry Ont .