HF trailer lighting problems

[jeffwholmes]

Hello to everyone.
I have a problem with the lights on my HF trailer; I wired up my lights yesterday green and brown wires down the right, yellow and brown down the left, marker lights to the brown wires and ground wire in place.
When I hooked up the tow vehicle the brake and signal lights worked perfect, however the marker and tail lights did not and blew a fuse on the two vehicle.
Any thoughts as to what might be the problem, I did unhook the marker lights before I ran out of daylight still didn’t fix the problem.
I am at work now and can’t work on it till I am of shift in the morning, just wondering if anyone has had this problem and so I can get an idea on where to start looking for the problem.
Thanks for your help.
Jeff.

[toypusher]

Try making sure that the ground is to bare metal and that all the wires are connected as should be. I assume that you already double checked the wires. I have a HF trailer and somehow one of the wires got the insulation stripped back, but I noticed it and put electrical tape around it before I tried to make the connection.

Does your tow vehicle have the 4-wire connections or something else? You need to check the vechicle side of things also. I have a toyota tacoma and purchased a wiring kit at Wal-Mart and it just plugged into the taillight assemblies of my truck. Everything worked fine the first time out.

Gremlins have tendency to be difficult to find. Hope yours won't be and good luck.

Kerry

[SteveH]

the marker and tail lights did not and blew a fuse on the two vehicle.

Jeff,

If it blew the fuse when you turned on the tow vehicle lights, you have a short on the brown wire, with the possible exception that the fuse in the vehicle is sized too small to handle the additional load of the trailer lights. However, I would bet on the short. It may be hard to find because to an ohm meter, a light bulb looks like a short also. I would just visually inspect all the wiring to find the short.

[Nitetimes]

Definitely a dead short in the brown wire or one of the lights is shorted out. If you can't see anything obvious in the wires try removing the lights and look for a pinched wire behind each of them.

[jeffwholmes]

Thanks everyone for your replies, to answer a couple of questions and to ask another, the tow vehicle is fine works well with my other trailer that I just wired.
I did not see any bare spots in the brown wires, not to say that there isn’t but how could the brake lights and signals work fine off of the same feed?
That question in it’s self may have answered the question, if the feeder wire (hot wire) doesn’t show a problem with the break and signal lights then there has to be a short in one of the lights, on the running light side of things, right????

I am no electrician so thanks greatly for any and all help.

Jeff.

[Nitetimes]

Your turn-signals and brake light work off of the yellow/green wires, only the marker and tail-lights work off the brown wire.
Might also want to check the tow vehicle wiring with a test light to make sure it matches the trailer wiring. Sometimes that can cause your problem.

[jeffwholmes]

Nitetimes, just checked out your site good job.
Also in regards to the tow vehicle, I hooked up my other trailer and it works fine, sorry it took so long to check back in, been along day in Ambulance land, I guess I just need to trace the brown wires and see if there is a bear spot or see if there is a short in one of the lights.
Thanks again for your replies.
Jeff.

[Nitetimes]

Nitetimes, just checked out your site good job.

Jeff.

It used to keep me amussed, but it's way out of date, just haven't had time to keep it up-dated and I really need to get at it cause there's loads of material for it now!

[OkieSailor]

Check the post I put in about making a circuit checker. Pull the bulbs and use the circuit checker according to the directions given. Good luck!

[jeffwholmes]

Thanks OkieSailor, I pulled the wires yesterday evening they look ok, going to take the tail lights apart today and check them. Might be a short in the light it’s self.
Thanks.
Jeff.

[jeffwholmes]

Finally got the tail lights off today, the side marker light was shorting out. The copper part that the bulb sits on was touching the side of the light housing, I bent it and fixed the problem.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions.
Jeff.