Archived Trailer Wiring, HELP!!!

[rnolen]

Ok here we go. I went to Texas over the weekend to pick up my roping horse and came back with a wiring mess. Since last summer I have had some issues with my trailer brakes and my brake controller. I was towing my trailer this summer and was going around a blind corner and I found a car sitting in the middle of the lane trying to decide which way to turn. I reached down and grabed a hand full of trailer brake and all of a sudden lost them after that. Never hit the guy, but lost trailer brakes. I replaced the brake controller and changed out the plugs on both the truck and the trailer and it seemed to fix everything. A few months down the road I was towing a flatbed in the snow and all of sudden had no or very little trailer brakes. As soon as it dried out the brakes were back. Well, I didn't worry about it and fiqured come nice weather I would find out what is going on. This weekend on the way back we hit rain in D/FW. We lost the brakes and then had them on and off the rest of the trip. I went to check the plugs at a gas station and noticed the running lights on the front part of the trailer were working, but the ones in the second half of the trailer were not working as well. They were considerably dimmer than the ones in the front part. Keep in mind i still don't have brakes. I also noticed one of the connectors on the male end had the plastic melted around it and it was hot by it. I cleaned the melted plastic off and had no change. So we got home unloaded the horse and went inside. This morning I fired the truck off and went to unhook the trailer and couldn't get the plug out of the truck. I finally worked it out, or at least part of it came out. The sucker broke on me. I figure that it melted some more and stuck to the other pieces. What I am getting at is I probably have a wiring issue in the trailer. With the running lights being dimmed I figure that probably have a ground issue. I am going to get it in the garage and check out the underside to see anything. Do you guys have any suggestions for this. Please, Please, Please help on this. I need this trailer soon and I am not the best at wiring things. No I did not wire it the first time it was a friend of mine who is very good at wiring.



Thanks

God Bless

Russ

 

[MKellam]

Check the G106 ground at the FRONT of the truck near the horns. This ground is for ALL the rear light and the trailer tow connector. And since it sits up front, get all the road grime and salt that it needs to corrode. Also check the grounds for the brakes themselves. Some trailer manufacturers tie all the grounds to one point, usually near the front, and some tie them at the individual nmount points to the light themselves. since you say the front half of the light are OKAY, I would think that they are somewhat split up and mayhave grounds for the fron and grounds for the rear lights.



Give this a shot and let me know how it turns out.



Mike

 

[Andy Redmond]

Russell:



How's the 'pony? Did you get your mare bred when she was down last year?



Ck. the ground "strap" from the drivers side battery to left frame rail about the level of the inner fender. I found one recently that the frame bolt was missing, the ground was intermittant. Just a long shot. You were given excellent advice in the previous post.



Good luck, Andy

 

[rnolen]

thanks guys. No, Andy she came back unpregnant. That is next year with a nice little Paint Stud. I am not the orginal owner of the truck and I went to check out the wiring and I am not real sure this truck came from the factory with trailer wiring. It looks like the previous owner added it or something. I am sure it is a problem in the truck and not in the trailer because the problem brake problem happened with two different trailers. I am going to crawl up underneath it some more and see if I can find this ground you guys are talking about. My older brother looked at the trailer yesterday and said everything looked good to him on the trailer end of things. I need this problem fixed because I need to haul this horse. Well, thanks again and if you have anything else be sure to send it.

Thanks and God Bless

Russ

 

[Andy Redmond]

Do you have high speed access, I'll shoot you some digital photos. .



Ask your sweetie for the FSM for a special anniversary, holiday, christmas etc. . Have her call me and I'll help her order it if she wants to suprise you!



Later

Andy

 

[rnolen]

I think we got it. We traced some stuff on the truck and found that my auxillary at the plug had been corroded. It was probably the reason for the sporadic trailer brakes. We also found the the grounding problem. One of the rear fender well lights had the wire pulled apart. The other half of the wire was resting up against the frame were it could ground thinks out. We are going to tackle that prolbem tonight. Everything else checks out ok so I am sure it is probably these problems. Thanks for the help and quick responses. If this doesn't fix it I will be asking for more help. Thanks and Andy I do have highspeed access. I will PM you my email.



Thanks and God Bless