Trailer Lighting Problems

I read several of the previous posts on trailer light problems and did not see an answer to what I am experiencing.

I had one of my clearance (running lights) go out the other day. I had previously switch out my tail lights to LED's. Decided that I would put new LED's for the clearance lights. Replaced the lights. The interesting thing was that the clearance lights were attached with rivets and not screws. Not a big deal since I have a rivet gun so that is what I used. Tested the lights after installation and everything worked. Backed out of the drive way and pulled down the street and notices that none of my lights worked.

Checked the plug at the truck and everything worked. Checked voltage at the tail lights and am good for brake and turn signal. Checked voltage for running lights and good there also. However, the running lights on the tail lights and clearance lights don't work. Checked brown wire again grounding to the frame and it seems O.K.

Tail lights have seperate ground to the trailer.

Basically, I have all functions on both sides except for running lights. Could there be a short in the running lights in the tail lights that could be causing the problem?.

I am planning on running new wires for the trailer and getting a new harness and might get new LED's for the tail lights. Boat is
years old and its probably time for new wires.

One other question is that the clearance lights ground throught the housing on the light through the rivet. I noticed that there are other lights that have a seperate groung wire but just purchased the same type that was on the boat previously. I used aluminum rivets to attache the lights.

Any thoughts?

If you've got 12V on the brown wire and the lights are grounded, they should light. If you had a short, the fuse would blow and you wouldn't see 12V.

Having things change when you move points to the white wire ground point on the tongue. Check that it has a good connection to bare metal.

If you only changed lights, it sounds like it may be the grounding of the lights themselves. Perhaps the rivets aren't providing a good ground. Drill out the rivets on one, turn on the lights, and ground it with a small screwdriver. If it works, drill-out all the rivets and replace them with bolts/nuts/star washers after removing a little paint around the screw holes.

Soldering and heat shrink tubing is the best way to go as far as making wire connections. Butt splices, electrical tape, and wire nuts will eventually fail and lose their connection.

Probably lost the ground for the side lights thru the rivet. I never put tights back in with a rivet because it's to hard to get good contact thru the ground tab in the light, the rivet and the hole in the trailer. I'd get some stainless screws and nuts with a lock washer and put them in that way.

My problems with trailer lights have almost always been with either a bad ground or with water getting into the supposedly sealed lights. I fixed my problems by converting everything to to LEDs and by also running a dedicated ground wire to each light. I am going on 4 years since doing that and have not had any problems since. MY 2 cents.

I found my problems. Had a short in one of the new lights and had one of my ground wires that was questionable. Checked all my other connections and replaced the remaining lights with Led's. Found that the short had blown a fuse. Also found out that my truck has a seperate fuse box. Didn't know that. Have all my lights now. Picked up all the items to completely re-wire the trailer if I have any more problems. Thanks for all the suggestions. They really helped.