Snowmobile Trailer Lights

[Scott M]

So my snowmobile trailer night lights are giving me troubles. The brake, turn lights, and side markers are fine. For some goofy reason, the night lights only come on when I'm bouncing down the road and they flicker on and off or if I jump on the trailer tongue and keep extra weight on. Is this a ground issue? I just redid the connections and had no problems, and I really don't think anything came loose. But if it was ground, wouldn't everything be out? Putting weight on the tongue makes me think ground, and I'm wondering if I steel brushed the rust off my hitch and receiver if it would be better. I guess I could try that. If I'm missing something or you can better explain the ground logic, talk me through it.

[randerson]

Try tightening the nut on the copler

[Macgyver55]

The lights should NOT ground through the ball hitch. Properly wired lights will work even when the trailer is not on the hitch. Check the white wire on both the vehicle and the trailer connectors with an ohm meter to insure they are grounded. By this I mean the vehicle connector should show a good ground to the vehicle frame and the trailer connector (white wire) should have a good ground to the trailer frame. Once these check out good the lights should stop flickering. The only other issue would be if an individual light has lost its ground to the trailer frame.

[Scott M]

The flickering is in tandem...nut is tight...Looking like I'm going to have to take wires apart again. I'll check and see if it grounds while disconnected.

[Macgyver55]

I should have added that when you have a tilt trailer, you need to make sure that the frame has a good ground at the pivot point where the tongue in the bed meet. Trailers often corrode at the pivot point, causing the bed part of the frame to be poorly grounded. You can remedy this by attaching a small ground wire from the tongue tube, to the bed, near the tilt pin.

[icehole10]

So my snowmobile trailer night lights are giving me troubles. The brake, turn lights, and side markers are fine. For some goofy reason, the night lights only come on when I'm bouncing down the road and they flicker on and off or if I jump on the trailer tongue and keep extra weight on. Is this a ground issue? I just redid the connections and had no problems, and I really don't think anything came loose. But if it was ground, wouldn't everything be out? Putting weight on the tongue makes me think ground, and I'm wondering if I steel brushed the rust off my hitch and receiver if it would be better. I guess I could try that. If I'm missing something or you can better explain the ground logic, talk me through it.

Sure sounds like a ground issue, a quick way to tell is take a jumper wire from bare metal on the trailer to a good ground on the truck. You can use jumper cables if you don't have a set of jumper wires. if that cures it. you'll have to check the ground between the truck and trailer. As said by someone else it should be the white wire, assuming you have a 4 wire flat connection.