Wiring trailer lights on fish house

[Bambito]

I bought a perm. Fish house and the guy didn't have any lights on it. So I bought a trailer light kit and wired everything up today. Hooked it up to the truck and I have break lights, hazards and blinkers but no actual tail lights. I am hooking a 4 flat into and adaptor on my truck. So what did I do wrong. Also have the ground wire hooked to a bolt on the fish house hitch. Any suggestions?

[bak2MN]

Check to make sure you have power to the brown wire from the truck. If not check the truck fuses for the taillights.

[Bambito]

I checked every fuse in the truck also....everyone is good. Sorry forgot to mention that. I also bought a different adaptor. Not the adaptor either

[icehole10]

do you have a test light? If so turn your marker lights on and check the terminal that would line up with the brown wire on the trailer plug for power.

[Bambito]

K I tested that and I do.

[Bambito]

Do I need to ground something else since I'm using the adaptor

[raymondk]

are your lights grounded to the frame if not you are going to have to run a ground wire to both your lights. what are your lights mounted to.

[Bambito]

Since they don't make brackets for them I built some...out of wood. But I do have blinkers and break lights. So how can I have them but no tail lights

[Bambito]

I have the ground wire from the flat grounded to the trailer...but that s it

[Smoker]

Ground wires will do strange things. Run a ground to the lights also or a wire from the lights to the frame. Be sure to clean where the ground wire is on the frame to bare metal

[Hawg]

Test your truck socket without the trailer plug in. I had a similar problem with my truck socket in the bumper that acted like this.

Smoker is 100% dead on too, be sure to run some extra grounds just to check.

[toughguy]

+2 on ground. almost all problems come from a bad ground

[dirtking]

I had trouble with my lights as well. The frame is grounded. The tail lights ground to the siding which touches the frame. The siding was not making good contact with the frame due to rust ect. I ran two wires back and grounded each tail light and now it works perfect.

[RiverChuckNorris]

+1. Picked up my Castle this fall and the Trailer brake wouldn't work, truck didn't recognize that a trailer was connected and my Castle lights were acting up. Turns out I had to replace the $30 lighting plug/port on the truck (2011). Thanks MN winters/road chemicals.

[icehole10]

Are there three wires coming out of the tail lights? if there is only two of them they are meant to self ground through the light housing, and mounting them to a wood bracket would not work. If there is three wires (brown or black, green or yellow, and a white) you should be fine. Turn signals and brake lights both run through the same wire, and use the same filament in the bulb. They can do tricky things, but im going to guess you have a ground issue as well.

[eagle_3464]

I would agree that you most likely have a ground issue. Lots of time can be wasted chasing the power side when the ground is usually the culprit. Sometimes it may appear you have a ground connection but if it is weak the circuit may not complete itself. I have a separate ground wire from every light to a main junction supplied from the vehicle. This way all the grounds are connected at one point rather than grounding the frame and then the lights to the frame. Junction block is also mounted inside the house to keep it away from all the corrosion.

[icehole10]

Did you get this figured out, and if so what did you find??

[Bambito]

Not yet... Will be working on it this weekend. I'm one of the lucky ppl who get to work 12 hour days!

[Bambito]

Well you guys were right! I took the wood plate I built to hold each light on, off,and bought some metal brackets that luckily enough fit the bolts on the back of the lights. Hooked everything up And BAM! Everything works! Thanks for your help everyone!

[Smoker]

Glad it worked for you

[icehole10]

Good to hear, I had tech's who worked for me when I was a foreman in a semi-trailer repair facility spend hours looking for wiring issues, replacing lights, etc, and all along it was a ground issue.