Trailer Light Issue

[amateurfishing]

uhhggggg!!! I have spend countless hours planning and figuring this out. Well, after most everything not going right today, everything is installed but not everything is working. Passenger side works perfectly, driver side not at all, I give up and cry....have no idea. The only difference i had was side light on passenger was grounded and drivers not, but i have same wire grounding both, just dont understand.

[amateurfishing]

well, i believe it SHOULD have been a lot easier!! It is still not done tonite. Finally got all lights working late (think it was bad connction), those crimp connectors are not all that great, then tried to rubber tube shrink all connections b4 rain tonite and the rubber tubes dont even shrink. used wifes curing iron and they barely even started to melt. Plz, is there something i am doing wrong with all of this really?

[Eric Wettschreck]

Hair dryers just don't get hot enough. Need a hot air gun. Or a match. Just be careful with the heat. Move the flame around and don't melt the insulation on the wire.

Are you sure the wiring connector on the tow vehicle is properly connected? Do you have a battery laying around? If so, connect the - of the battery to the white wire on your trailer wire. Then take a wire, connect it to the + of the battery and different terminals on the trailer wiring harness. If they work on battery power then it's a problem coming from the harness of the tow vehicle.

Look at the schematic I posted earlier, then tell us in detail, what wires you have connected and what isn't working.

[upnorthvoice]

If I remember correctly I used a bic lighter to shrink the tubing. Being careful of gas fumes of course.

[Hookmaster]

I'm using the wrong kind of solder.

[Hookmaster]

I have both types of solder guns but prefer the pencil style also.

[marine_man]

So I can splice with crimp connectors? vehicle line in 1 side & sidelight/tail light together out the other?

Yes, you can do that... be sure you get a good crimp & shrink tube it when you're done if you're not going to solder it. After you make your crimps pull / wiggle the wires to make sure it's good.

I use a soldering iron made by black and decker that heats the wires up really quickly...

marine_man

[amateurfishing]

does anyone have any clue why a drivers side trailer led light would only partially work, can only get the light in middle on. This dogon thing is driving me crazy, have been working on it for a week, passenger side is perfect. HELP PLZ!!

[Jim Almquist]

The biggest problem is always connections. Make sure that when you connect two wires together that the wire itself is free of any corrosion and is nice and shiny. If it is not get some steel wool and clean it up before you connect it together. If your ground wire is bolted/screwed to the frame make sure that it is clean and making a tight connection. A bad ground can cause you so many different problems with the symptoms changing every time you do something different. Make darn sure the tow vehicle is wired correctly or everything you do to the trailer is a waste of time. If you don't have a meter you should at least have a test bulb so you can test your tow vehicle as well as your connection to see if there really is power when it is suppose to be there and none when it is suppose to be dead.

So your problem is with the drivers side running light you need to look at your connection with the brown wire or something with the white wire which is your ground.

[amateurfishing]

Thx for all your help, guy at local auto shop told me how to troubleshoot this am. Was a bad connection that i was chasing the wrong wire the whole time. All your advice is greatly appreciated and finally problem solved.

[Eric Wettschreck]

Good to hear.

For in the future, if you have a problem with your lights, 99.999999999% of the time it's either a bad connection or a bad ground or both in combanation.