Trailer Electrical mystery
Trailer Electrical mystery Hello,
I do work for a man that covers pool decks and he asked me to look at his trailer wiring for him. His brakes and a few of the lights were malfunctioning. When I got to looking at it, the wiring was so bad I just pulled it all out and ran all new wiring. Now here comes the tricky part:
1. When the park lights / brake lights are on, with either left or right turn signal, all of the lights flash, but vaguely.
2. The 6 pin connector from the trailer to the truck has a fat pin for the blue wire for the brakes, but its labeled ground, and the pin where the ground should be is labeled brakes. From the truck its the same, the fat pin for the brakes is ground, but the 'ground' wire has power. Not a big deal, but if I switch it to make it correct, the brakes work, but the intensity of the flashing is greater.
All grounds are nice and shiny, all lights work, but have no brakes and the lights dim down when either blinker is on...
I do work for a man that covers pool decks and he asked me to look at his trailer wiring for him. His brakes and a few of the lights were malfunctioning. When I got to looking at it, the wiring was so bad I just pulled it all out and ran all new wiring. Now here comes the tricky part:
1. When the park lights / brake lights are on, with either left or right turn signal, all of the lights flash, but vaguely.
2. The 6 pin connector from the trailer to the truck has a fat pin for the blue wire for the brakes, but its labeled ground, and the pin where the ground should be is labeled brakes. From the truck its the same, the fat pin for the brakes is ground, but the 'ground' wire has power. Not a big deal, but if I switch it to make it correct, the brakes work, but the intensity of the flashing is greater.
All grounds are nice and shiny, all lights work, but have no brakes and the lights dim down when either blinker is on...
I use to do this all the time about 15 yrs ago.
I saved the most amount of time by starting over and not trying to figure out someone else's ****-up. I'd give it the test light for about 5 minutes. If the customer didn't want my solution, I'd bill by the hour.
If some lights are dim while others are bright, it could be the ground at the light itself.
Dim lights all around are solved by the booster (I forget what it's called).
Sounds like your ground is good at the plug and frame.
6 pin blue is for electric brakes, traditionally.
You probably know all this. I wish you luck.
I saved the most amount of time by starting over and not trying to figure out someone else's ****-up. I'd give it the test light for about 5 minutes. If the customer didn't want my solution, I'd bill by the hour.
If some lights are dim while others are bright, it could be the ground at the light itself.
Dim lights all around are solved by the booster (I forget what it's called).
Sounds like your ground is good at the plug and frame.
6 pin blue is for electric brakes, traditionally.
You probably know all this. I wish you luck.
Now that I re-read your post, I'm a little confused. 
Tell me if I'm right:
1. Problem is all lights are dim.
2. Problem is plug/connector is labeled incorrectly. But, if you swap to the hot wire, it works.
Tell me if I'm right:
1. Problem is all lights are dim.
2. Problem is plug/connector is labeled incorrectly. But, if you swap to the hot wire, it works.
Well yes, sort of. The problem is when the running lights are on, with the left/right turn signal on, when the flasher is ON, the other lights go dim, when the flasher goes OFF it goes back to normal brightness. So my guess is that the blinker is drawing a large amount of amps, at least enough to dim the rest of the lights giving it the illusion the rest of the lights are blinking.
Other problem is, for some reason, the brakes don't work, I have no idea why. Im going to grind down the brake magnet ground point to see if that helps. Other than that I have no idea what the deal is.
Answer to #2 question is no, I thought it was labeled incorrectly, but its not, it was my error. Sorry.
Other problem is, for some reason, the brakes don't work, I have no idea why. Im going to grind down the brake magnet ground point to see if that helps. Other than that I have no idea what the deal is.
Answer to #2 question is no, I thought it was labeled incorrectly, but its not, it was my error. Sorry.
DUmb question here but just checking, are their correct bulb sizes in the trailer? a different bulb thatn the one needed IE a 3156 is a single filament and a 3157 is a dual, if thats the case it might cause a draw. I know not likely but something else to look at and consider, cause if it is drawing power when the left/right turn signla is on I would think that either the bulbs are incorrect or as you have already stated, the ground is not "grounding" out as well as it should be.
OK, I confirmed that at the truck connection:
brown wire(running lights) have 12v with the truck lights on
yellow wire(left turn) has 12v fluctuating with its corresponding signal on
green wire(right turn) has 12v fluctuating with its corresponding signal on
blue wire(brakes) has around ~11.94v with brakes off, brakes on ~11.83v
I'm going to check for continuity on the ground pin tomorrow, I still don't know what the problem is...
brown wire(running lights) have 12v with the truck lights on
yellow wire(left turn) has 12v fluctuating with its corresponding signal on
green wire(right turn) has 12v fluctuating with its corresponding signal on
blue wire(brakes) has around ~11.94v with brakes off, brakes on ~11.83v
I'm going to check for continuity on the ground pin tomorrow, I still don't know what the problem is...
I ground down all of my ground points except for the brakes. I checked for continuity on all my grounds and all of them read .000 which is perfect. Now, hooked the truck up to the trailer with the truck idling, the lights still dim and the brakes still don't work...
Im going to grind down the brake grounds later today in hopes that it might cure the problem. I doubt it though. I have no clue why the trailer is pulling that many amps to dim all of the lights with just the blinker on...
Im going to grind down the brake grounds later today in hopes that it might cure the problem. I doubt it though. I have no clue why the trailer is pulling that many amps to dim all of the lights with just the blinker on...
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