Harbor Freight Lights

[bledsoe3]

Has anyone used the harbor freight light kit. The directions included are unclear to say the least.
http://www.harborfreight.com/manuals/93000-93999/93861.pdf
On each tail light there are three wires. Two black and one red. All the directions say is connect the two wires on each side to the lights. No info on what connects to what. And two wires going to three wires. Any help from one of you that have used these, or someone smarter than me would be great.

[tonyj]

No experience on the HF lights, but a similar problem on the brake lights I ordered. Didn't know which wire was for stop/turn/tail until I looked close where the wire went into the fixture, and molded into the plastic was "stop", "tail", etc. Hope it's there on yours, too.

[IndyCubby]

The two black wires should be for the parking light in the main bulb and the little bulb on the side of the light housing. You should wire those two together with whatever wire goes to your parking/running lights on your trailer. I believe it is usually a brown wire on the harness.

The red wire should be for the brake/signal part of the main bulb. You will probably connect this red wire to a green wire on one side and a yellow wire on the other side. There's no ground wire because it grounds through the bracket to the frame.

Hope that helps!

[bledsoe3]

The two black wires should be for the parking light in the main bulb and the little bulb on the side of the light housing. You should wire those two together with whatever wire goes to your parking/running lights on your trailer. I believe it is usually a brown wire on the harness.

The red wire should be for the brake/signal part of the main bulb. You will probably connect this red wire to a green wire on one side and a yellow wire on the other side. There's no ground wire because it grounds through the bracket to the frame.

Hope that helps!

That could be my problem. My trailer is a "woodie" and the bracket doesn't mount to the frame. I'll run a ground from the bracket to the frame to see if that works.
Thanks.

[rainjer]

That could be my problem. My trailer is a "woodie" and the bracket doesn't mount to the frame. I'll run a ground from the bracket to the frame to see if that works.

I had the same issue when my trailer was a utility trailer. I move them up on the side of the box & they stopped working. It took me a while to figure out it was the ground.

[madjack]

...the greeen wire in the harness should be the right brake/stop light and the yellow the left...and of course the brown is the running lights....
madjack

[asianflava]

Just like MJ said about the wire colors. After I ran my wires, I had to remove all the lights to skin the aluminum. When I was hooking the lights back up, I couldn't remember which wire was the tail and which was the turn. An easy to check is to look at the plug, on a flat 4-pin, the running lights are connected to the same pin. I ran separate 2 conductor wires for the running lights (4 corners) and tapped the ground off of those.

[Nitetimes]

I never saw one of those light kits with wires coming out the back, they usually have small holes in the back of them, you strip the wires and slip them in the holes.
But what everyone said is right, brown would go to your blacks and red goes to yellow or green.

That could be my problem. My trailer is a "woodie" and the bracket doesn't mount to the frame. I'll run a ground from the bracket to the frame to see if that works.
Thanks.

That should work just fine, just make sure your connection spots are clean.

[Chuck Craven]

Take a look at this site they have a 4wire and a 5wire diagram.
http://www.easternmarine.com/em%5Fstore/lighting/

Chuck

[bledsoe3]

I haven't finished yet, but I did take a wire from the mounting lugs to the frame and the lights worked. The funny thing is, even with out the ground the brake and turn signals worked. Just not the running lights.

[bronco]

i actually used the harbor freight trailer light set for flat towing the bronco. its buried somewhere above my garage (the lights not the bronco! ha!ha!) or i would try and give you my wire connections. your right the instructions are kind of a joke. the one thing i know is that me and my neighbor couldnt get it to work until we finally gave it a good ground and then everything worked perfectly. i know i didnt help much but i feel your pain and i do at least know that "ground" is the word.