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Member
Posts: 921
Location: Manitowoc, WI | I noticed my lights on the trailer flickering when I picked up the boat today. When I went to hook up my surge brakes safety cable, I noticed sparks. Is this suppose to be a ground also? Or do I have a short somewhere? All the lights work on the trailer. Could it be the coil in the surge breaks? I took the cover off and it appears fine. I hand over handed the trailer wires and can't find anything. Do the tail lights come apart to check the bulb connections? If so, how. I can pop the whole light unit out but don't want to force the lens apart in case it's one solid sealed unit. HELP! |
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Member
Posts: 1991
| Bad ground |
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| it definitely shouldn't do that, you've got juice in your trailer looking for a way out.
the surge brake cable shouldn't be a ground, most likely it's getting current from the trailer frame that's using it to ground to your truck when you connect it.
do you feel anything if you touch the trailer frame with your hand? don't test that while standing in a puddle. 
like Kirt said...first place i'd start checking and tightening all the grounds. and...to make it harder to find, it might be intermittent as the ground vibrates during travel...plus it can be tough as the heads of some of the ground bolts are underneath the diamondplate which is riveted onto the fenders, making them awful tough to tighten.
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Member
Posts: 2445
Location: Fremont, Wisconsin | Look for a bare wire, power wire. The sparks when you hook up the brake cable is the give away. But then again, electricity and me = fires. |
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Member
Posts: 102
| Yep! Sounds like a bad ground to me also. The corrosion on the hitch ball makes a half***** ground to the vehicle so that causes the lights to work kind of. I'd expect to find corrosion in the connector plugs on the ground wire socket/plug or the socket being bent open too far for the plug to mate properly. After that I'd look at the termination on the ground wire where it bolts to the trailer frame. Could be a broken wire in the terminal or rust under the terminal. Finally, it just could be a broken wire where the insulation is hiding the broken strands so it isn't visible. That you should be able to feel by inspecting the wires.
If you want to play electrical games with the rig, park it so the wires connect from the vehicle to the boat, but don't let the trailer touch the vehicle. Then try the lights. Wiggle the ground wire and watch the lights. This might help you locate the broken/bad area in the ground.
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Member
Posts: 921
Location: Manitowoc, WI | Thanks all! After leaving the garage at 4:45 am, I only have one more thing I can do. I need to disconnect the side marker lights from the main harness and see if it is indeed the riveted grounds under the fenders. If that's not it, I'll just replace the wiring harness. I'll let you all know what I find. Working 75 hour weeks right now and don't know when I'll be doing this but it will be soon. Thanks again! |
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Member
Posts: 1991
| If you had a short you would be blowing a fuse. Look at a grounding issue, electricity it hard to explain, but you will more than likely see a spark, the ground is the return path or nuetral on a 12v system, 120v house has a nuetral(white wire) as the return path, 12v has a ground (green wire) .
So before you strip the wiring out of your trailer check the ground first. Granted you may have a hot wire rubbed thru, but you are usually going to blow a fuse do to the high current draw. |
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Member
Posts: 3899
| whoa there nellie.
On trailers, the white wire is the ground. Green wire is the right blinker, yellow is the left blinker, and brown is the running lights. Blue would be the reverse lockout to the brake solenoid.
Bob, is suspect your ground on the truck or the trailer is bad. When you see the sparks, is the trailer on the ball yet? If so, then your ball is probably rusty, and not conducting either.
Look at the white wire where it connect to the trailer frame. The wire is either broken, or there is some rust or other corrosion under the connection.
If you don't find the problem on the trailer, look at the truck.
Best to check with a multi meter. Call me if you're in the area, and still need help. |
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Member
Posts: 1991
| Sorry Shep you right sheesh white is ground, to many hours staring at Trane chiller wiring |
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Member
Posts: 921
Location: Manitowoc, WI | Checked with the multimeter. The ground or short is on the port side in either the brown, yellow or ground on that side. I will investigate further next Wednesday. I really would like to thank the SOB that decided to use the pop rivets for the fender diamond plate to also connect the sidemarker ground wires. Please do not introduce him to me as I have a wife and 2 kids to support and they don't pay well in max security prisons. LOL! |
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| the ground wire doesnot run to the back of the trailer. so, if port side is the problem, then its brown or yellow which is a live wire that has rubbed through and is shorting to the frame. thus, the answer i gave him because of the sparking. ground stays at the front only. did not blow fuses, yet! it must be a small bare spot or big fuse. |
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| Well at 4 a.m. yesterday after changing out ground wires on the fenders and going over all the wiring under the trailer with a fine toothed comb and a slight panick attack when I got stuck under the trailer with no way to call the wifes attention for help (nothing hurt but my pride and bruised ribs), not that she would have helped, I fixed the wiring problem. Ironically I think the kids were playing toll booth with the swing tongue and didn't realize they pinched the harness. They still won't admit it. I couldn't tell with the black plastic protector on the harness but something told me to remove it and look. There it was laughing at me because I looked there last. Live and learn. Now after I change the gear lube and add $100 worth of spark plugs to the Opti, I'll be ready to go. |
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| it's time to raise the toll rates to cover the costs of a new harness...
and it's ALWAYS the last thing you check!
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Trailer Ground?