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Trailer Lights

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Gary from Muleshoe

Well-known Member
I"ve got one that is stumping me. I bought a little 6" trailer to haul lawn mowers on. The light connector was bad so i wired in a new one, when I turn the left or right turn signal on both blink. Figuring I had a bad wiring harness I bought new set of lights at Wally World. Hooked them up and it does the same thing. Took both light off and set them on the wood floor and all works as it should. Now can some one tell me what the problem is. It does this on my F150 and my Expedition. Both vehicles work fine with my other two trailers. I have wired many trailers and this is a first for me.
 
Stopped having light (and brake) problems when I started running the 'ground' wires from each device (tied together into a single wire) all the way to the negative post on the battery.
 
Ok I will try the ground again, I did an ohms check on it and it checked good. I am going to drill a new hole and see if that fixes it.
 
A 6" trailer isn't long enough to ground properly, try a longer trailer. :lol:

I'm just kidding, but it probably is a grounding problem.
 
I don't want to sound like an advertisement, but I have had a lot of wiring issues on trailers I only use once or twice a year.

I bought a set of wireless lights that the transmitter plugs into the 4 wire flat plug. Works GREAT. The added bonus is that you can use the lights without the transmitter as tail lights only, meaning just put the lights on whatever you are pulling or even on your tractor fenders. They are magnetic, and came with straps if no magnetic surface.

I need to go out to the pickup to see the brand name, but I think maybe only one company makes them. Wireless Taillights or something like that, pretty sure Gemplers, maybe J.C Whitney, etc has them. I got mine off Ebay.

They aren't cheap, but I think well worth it. They use AA batteries, so need to keep some on hand.

The one drawback I see with them is no trailer brakes if you are wired for them. DOUG
 
Ground.................
Add a connection to your plug that grounds to your tow vehicle then a ground wire from each light and run a wire to the plug. Could probably get by with just a wire from the trailer frame plugged in though.

Dave
 
I don't understand how a ground would result in both turn singnals flashing at the same time. To get there, there has to be power to both lamps. Since you say you started by replacing the connector, I'm guessing you left the rest of the harness intact. When you replaced the lamps IF you left the harness intact and connected the new lamps to the old wire then I understand what's happening and why the lamps work when you have them on the bench. IF my assumptions are correct then someone crosstied the wires on the old harness between your new connector and your new lamps. Or I'm really, really wrong.
 
My guess is ground too. trailer wiring can be a crazy thing...Here's one: I had a bad bulb in a motorhome tail light that caused the trailer brakes to apply every time I signalled a left turn. Made merging on to the highway a real surprise! Took me a while to noodle that one out.
 
A quick way to get a ground or test is to use a battery jump cable to connect a solid ground on the truck to a clean / no paint ground on the trailer.
 
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