Trailer Lights

[Brian S]

Are these problems contagious?

Here's mine. The trailer lights were a mess (one taillight would allways have the brake light on and would burn out the bulb after an hour, the other taillight would go out when I hit a bump).

I took them apart this weekend, cleaned the contacts, then reassembled.

Now I have a new problem, one taillight works fine, the other goes out when I push on the brake. Running light works, turn signal works, but push on the brake and it goes out.

Any ideas?

[jpollman]

The absolute FIRST place to start with trailer lighting troubles ....

CHECK YOUR GROUND !!! Once you know that is good. Then you can proceed. I'd be willing to be that's your problem.

Let us know.

[MadCatter]

gotta agree .. that has bad ground all over it .. it could be at the truck or back at the light ... I have had the all go out every time I put on the break ... so I would say that the ground to the light itself might be the culprit.... see how its grounded .. clean it and I think you will be ok

[Brian S]

Wouldn't ya know it. I get home, hook up the boat and everything works.

For how long, who knows?

With everything working I thought about just leaving it alone but then decided to go ahead and start checking the ground connections. I checked the ground on the trailer and cleaned that up, then cleaned the harness conectors. Then I checked inside the lights for the ground connection, not a pretty site. And not easy to clean either. When I cleaned everything before, I just worked on cleaning where the wires connect to the light and where the bulb makes contact. Everything else is a corroded mess.

Although everything appears to be working for now, I think I'll just pick up a spare light and next time it starts acting up I'll just replace it.

To tell you the truth, when it was first suggested to check the ground, I thought that just refered to the wire connected to the trailer frame. I completely forgot about the ground connection at the light. When it comes to electrical stuff, I'm certainly not the brightest bulb on the tree! So anyway, it looks like a faulty ground at the light and based on the amount of corrosion, its due for a replacement.

Thanks all.

[jpollman]

Good deal. I was fairly certain that a bad ground was the culprit.

You've got to have those trailer lights working ! About 10 days ago I took my trailer down to pick up a load of hardwood flooring for a job I was doing. I drove all the way to the warehouse and back home again. I was about 1 block from home and turned into the left turn lane to enter my sub-division. A police car pulled in behind me and turned on his lights. :( I pulled into the sub and over to the side of the street. He came out and asked me if I knew that my trailer lights weren't working. I told him no. They were plugged in and I thought they were on and working. (I always double check before I leave but this time I was in a hurry) Well, since I was only a block from home he said to take the trailer home and not use it again until I got them fixed. He didn't issue a ticket. I said thank you and I would do just that. I took the trailer home and dropped it off. Then I headed up to BPS and picked up a new set of LEDs. I found that the ground was also the problem I was having with the lights. But the sockets weren't in the best of shape so I decided to rip the old ones off and install the new set.

One of the nice things about the LEDs is that they have a separate ground wire on them. I then run a ground wire from light to light and then up to the ground wire in the harness. I always solder each connection and that way corrosion isn't an issue.