trailer lights half-brightness

[JRS]

Driving on I-10 through Louisiana, I hit a big pot-hole with my trailer and the clearance/parking lights went half-dim. I checked the truck and the large green 40 amp fusible link under the hood had blown, but the lights were still half-dim. I checked and they are being back fed with about 3 volts, according to my Fluke meter. What's the easiest way to locate the short? remove all the lights and plug them in one at a time? It's an enclosed race car trailer, so all the wiring is in the walls. This is not the first time that road has damaged a trailer of mine.

 

[TGibbs]

I deal with shorts like the all the time. The first thing I would do, which I imagine you still drove it home, would be make a couple of sharp corners so the ball and couple turn against eachother. Sometimes there are bad grounds there and that can cause the lights to dim or even if a blinker is on, for all the lights to blink.



Guessing thats not the case, the easiest way is to figure out where the wires go and start cutting and see. What kind of trailer is it? We carry Wells Cargo trailers and I could tell you from memory where every wire goes but I have worked on a few others.



Let me know and I can try to help ya out.



Tristan

 

[NIsaacs]

Usually when you get back feed power, it is a bad ground. The ground goes all over looking for a ground. Hook up a wire with alligator clips from a good clean ground source on the truck and trailer, I think it will fix it.





"NICK"

 

[JRS]

thanks, guys. We were able to get about 5-6 clearance/parking lights working before the fuse would heat up too much and blow. the other 18 or so just put too much load on the circuit. at least we were able to get home without a ticket or some one running into us.



It's a Mainliner trailer, and I believe they are out of business. I purchased the trailer used, I thought a good alternative to purchasing new and not knowing what I wanted. Now that I have owned it for several years, I know exactly what I want when I purchase a new one.

 

[EricBu12]

I replaced all my marker lights with LED lights from..... http://www.ledtrailerlights.com/cm/cm_M23015.htm



LED Lights last longer and use 1/10th the power. .



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Here is a 60 series ... . 60 LED ovals..... I have 4 of them on the rear... I ran another wire to the rear so all 4 are running and brake but only the outter 2 are signal.



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i ran this light on the side for a mid-trailer light... It is a running light and signal... Regular bulb though... .



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