Originally Posted by
Wannabe...
Ya'll may have figured out that I'm a particular sort of fella. I like my stuff like I like my stuff. I want it all accessible, functional and in it's place. Whenever something isn't, it just sticks in my craw until it's back like it's supposed to be.
Well, I've had one of them situations for the past couple of months. It would seem I had a bad ground on my trailer. Occassionally, I'd hook up and take off and the lights would blink a little, but normally by the time I hit the end of the drive they'd be back like they should be. I figured the thing must be grounded to the truck and what was happening was a slight rust on the ball or hitch had to wear a little to make a good connection. Well, about 6 weeks ago, it seemed I had one blinker that wouldn't work and neither tail light would come on, but the blinkers and brakes did fine. I'd had enough and starting last weekend decided it was time to get to the bottom of it.
Broke out my handy dandy meter and went out to inspect.....in between getting ready to feed 40 folks fish + assorted C.C pot lickers as well. 1st thing I discovered was the system was not grounded through the ball. In fact, the lights are all grounded to the trailer and the 4 flat connection was grounded to the trailer as well, so the lack of connection at the ball was moot. Hmmm....OK, prolly just a bad master ground...Inspect and all is good. OK, times up and there's fish to cook.
With trailer lights, there's lots of links in the chain and any one of 'em can be the issue. There's lots of ways to run it down, but normally the best option is to re-wire everthing top to bottom, the right way, take your time to make sure it's right and be done with it. So, that's what I decided to do.
OK, so during the early part of the week, I went to buying locally. I hit all the automotive shops looking for a 5 wire set up, since my wires are run inside the tube frame to no avail. Best I could do was a 4 wire....No problem...I'll cheat it, forgo the standard color coding system and use the white ground as the right tail, then run a new ground to the trailer. But I also need a side marker with a stud ground....None of the 17 places I drove to had one so had to settle for a two screw job that is miss matched until I can replace with something the right type from online, but oh well.
OK, so Sunday PM I decided I'd go ahead and pull the oldwire and string the new so at least that part was done. Yesterday at lunch, I installed the new trailer side plug while waiting on the furniture guys and last night I terminated everything and buttoned it all back up right down to wire loom on the tongue in along with careful measurement to make sure everything had just enough play for tight turns, but not so much as to potentially drag the ground. Dang thing is wired better than it came out of the factory now jack and I'm all excited to see it light up like a Christmas tree, especially after spending 2 hours upside down on the ground.
Back the truck up hook it up and...................I've got brake, turn and no tail....right where I started.
Hmmmmm.......Surely this Toyota doesn't have a seperate fuse for towing turn, brake and blinker, cause that'd be stewpit, especially since I just spent 5 hours combined rewiring the whole dan thing...............Rofl Yep. Stankin' Japanese engineers. So, 4 minutes and 12 seconds spent this AM to select, pay for, remove from packaging, pop the hood, remove the cover, install the fuse, button it back up, store the extra 217 fuses I purchased and I'm good to go.
So...do you feel better now?
Wannabe....
And for the hard luck cases amongst us that still don't feel better, It rained last night and the ground was soaked for the entire two I hours I was laying on it. Now, I'm just certain, that every one of you gewbers should be feeling pretty dang skippy about now.
You're all welcome.
