Trailer wiring ???

[krugracing12]

We added a #10 wire with solderless connectors. Eyes bolted or selfapping screwed to each frame, with spade/ female connector between them. The short pigtail stays with the truck and we taped the extra wire from the trailer to the plug lead. then a short wire between the trailer frame and door frame and all off those same issues went away. the whole thing took ten minutes.

[buzzinhalfdozen]

As I stated earlier all of the trailer wiring issues can be diagnosed using a battery and some jump leads. Leaving the truck out of the equation eliminates confusion, if everything checks out at the trailer(which I'm fairly sure it will not) it would be an issue of incorrect wiring positions. I've found that breaking problems down to sub categories helps make the diagnosis easier. Start with JUST the trailer it avoids confusion. Good luck and let us know the outcome. Joe

[Mike Gray]

Originally Posted by Jeff Teuton

Ground the thing.

What he said....

[magnumv8]

We do these everyday at the shop so if you haven't solved it yet......if your truck has factory trailer wiring you should be fine there.....if the trailer still has the industry standard color coded cable (wiring) the trailer plug on the trailer gets wired like this with a 7 blade connector....to make it easy ignore the colors printed on the plug and socket and go only by the blade numbers (very small).....

#1....white...10ga wire...ground
#2....blue....12ga wire....trailer brakes
#3....brown....14ga wire.....tail lights,license plate light,marker lights
#4....orange or red....10ga wire....battery charge wire
#5....yellow......14ga wire.......left stop,turn signal
#6....green.....14ga wire.......right stop,turn signal.....
#7.....aux....can be used for whatever,leave empty

if everything is cool from there you said that the previous owner replaced the tail lights (stop/turns)......after double checking everything so far and the ground connection on the trailer frame here is what I would check next.....

The stop/turn light pigtails are 3 wires...one white(ground wire) one black(marker light wire) and one red(stop/turn).....if the previous owner replaced this pigtail it sounds like this is where the problem may be....it sounds like he has the marker light of the pigtail connected to the stop/turn on the trailer wiring,this explains why your trailer tailights blink dim and the marker lights blink also when you put on your turn signals....this would also give a feed back through the trailer plug into the truck causing it to do some strange things too.....


let us know what you find out.....

D L Rambo

[Kenny Wigington]

You can also use a good dielectric grease on the ball, after you clean off both surfaces. it will help with the round connection. Rust to rust doesnt make for good solid ground connections.

[buzzinhalfdozen]

NO trailer should be grounded thru the ball or hitch! Joe

[bknthda]

I recently fought this with my trailer. Found one of the contact (solder)buttons from the lamp sheared off & laying across both socket contacts, thereby shorting tail & running lights to the brake/ turn filament. Mine were also brand new replacement lights (made in China, of course). Vaseline on the lamp base helps to twist past the Mickey Mouse contacts on Mickey Mouse lights! Will also help fight corrosion.

[Bob Verwold]

Comp 387, did ya ever get the trailer lights working the way they should ?
If so what was the problem............

[FED 387]

OK guys----These were the problem(s) I have found so far & the corrections I made

1---ground wire anchor/crimp connector on trailer rotted/rusted/bad connection----corrected also made a plug in connector directly to the truck frame from trailer frame

2---Pinched wire harness at rear between fold down trailer door and box--rerouted/rewired from box to door

3---Bad/poor crimp connectors in taillight harness inside of ramp door( had to remove flooring on ramp door)---rewired & replaced both taillight assemblies

4---pigtail connecter going from trailer to receptacle on truck wired incorrectly( wires were in the wrong position)-----put them in the correct position on the pigtail

Gonna take it for a drive see if all works as it should--see if anything craps out and hopefully everything works as it should

I wanna thank everybody that responded and offered their suggestions---I am/was at my wits end trying to figure this out---Did not think that there would be so many problems musta spent 8-10 hours trying to fix this !!!!! But now that it all works so I'm gonna sell this trailer to some sucka!!!!!! No really I stole this for next to nothing ( I see why the guy sold it so cheap) Thanx again Comp 387