No brake lights on canoe trailer

[Miriam C.]

Well two days and finally the canoe trailer has new lights, new wiring and brake lights. See this thing sits so low to the road that the lights get broke. Well while changing the lights I decide to mess with what was working and put new wires too...........OMG. Well the new lights have no white wire coming out and I just totally ignored it.

One light was defective. One wiring harness sent sparks out of the ground wire.

The new one was great and U-Haul put my new hitch on the truck and said all the stuff on the truck was good but I still didn't have BRAKE LIGHTS. Knew it was a ground issue...............Asked Bob Henry and he says to ground to the truck...........well that would have worked if the lights were grounded to something other than aluminum..........Did I say 81# trailers are mostly aluminum..........DOH!

the problem child


The fix---both lights get a dedicated ground and it goes all the way to the ground at the front of the trailer.


And voila---brake lights.........


Thanks BOB so much.............nice to have so many people to bounce things off and ask important questions.

Yeah I will make it pretty tomorrow when the skeeters are sleeping. I would have liked to have the ground wire inside the tube with the rest but just didn't think about it.

Moral is to think about ground before the work is started..

[Dale M.]

Technically probably only thing missing was white wire from plug (ground) was not bonded to trailer frame.... (putting aside all the bad connections through bolted connection through frame). You may not have had to run dedicated grounds, BUT it does give a lot better reliability factor since you do not have to rely on frame integrity for grounds....

Dale

[chorizon]

I too am a firm believer in running the ground-wire all the way from point A to point B. Been bit too many times before...

Glad you guys got that sorted out! I've been thinking about building a trailer for my father-in-law to haul his kayaks. I like the look of that trailer!

[bobhenry]

If we can stretch this thread a bit to electrical DUH moments. I decided to install a GFI in the middle of my electrical run to protect all the down stream outlets the only exception is the 4 galley plugs. Well in so doing I had to undo a dual duplex because I needed to utilize a longer romax run from GFI to double duplex. All installed and back together and nothing downstream from the GFI worked. well almost nothing one of the 2 duplexes was hot. WTH I disassembled the double and checked that I didn't lose a wire in the rewire mess . All were in place I scratched my head for several minutes re tightened all the contacts . Nada Nuthin' Zip. WTH I reexamined the double duplex wiring and saw absolutely no reason this would not work. I finally took a plastic handled ( cheap) handy knife and used the blade to jump between the contacts on th hot duplex the neutral side nothing the hot side bingo I had broken the bonding tag between the upper outlet and the lower outlet. They are designed to be twisted out and allow each outlet to operate seperately if you wish. It was real hard to see in the dark trailer. Closer examination with a flashlight you could see a tiny fracture. So rather than rewire again I simply used bare copper to rebond the 2 and taped all connections after tightening. Talk about a snipe hunt. So ya ain't alone Auntie M.

[Larwyn]

Technically probably only thing missing was white wire from plug (ground) was not bonded to trailer frame.... (putting aside all the bad connections through bolted connection through frame). You may not have had to run dedicated grounds, BUT it does give a lot better reliability factor since you do not have to rely on frame integrity for grounds....

Dale

Most of the trailer light repairs I have done over the years have included running ground wire. I always run a dedicated ground wire to each light when I wire a trailer myself just to save future problems. But as far as aluminum vs steel, the aluminum is a much better conductor of both heat and electricity than steel.

[Miriam C.]

Technically probably only thing missing was white wire from plug (ground) was not bonded to trailer frame.... (putting aside all the bad connections through bolted connection through frame). You may not have had to run dedicated grounds, BUT it does give a lot better reliability factor since you do not have to rely on frame integrity for grounds....

Dale

Most of the trailer light repairs I have done over the years have included running ground wire. I always run a dedicated ground wire to each light when I wire a trailer myself just to save future problems. But as far as aluminum vs steel, the aluminum is a much better conductor of both heat and electricity than steel.

Uh Dale the white from the plug was bonded at the front. You are probably right about the bolted trailer though..

Larwyn
That's a darn good fact except that these lights did not ground with the mount and when I put the ground to the frame without running it to the front and joining the wiring ground it just didn't work. Those dang lights just plain went out every time the brake was pushed............

[Larwyn]

Technically probably only thing missing was white wire from plug (ground) was not bonded to trailer frame.... (putting aside all the bad connections through bolted connection through frame). You may not have had to run dedicated grounds, BUT it does give a lot better reliability factor since you do not have to rely on frame integrity for grounds....

Dale

Most of the trailer light repairs I have done over the years have included running ground wire. I always run a dedicated ground wire to each light when I wire a trailer myself just to save future problems. But as far as aluminum vs steel, the aluminum is a much better conductor of both heat and electricity than steel.

Uh Dale the white from the plug was bonded at the front. You are probably right about the bolted trailer though..

Larwyn
That's a darn good fact except that these lights did not ground with the mount and when I put the ground to the frame without running it to the front and joining the wiring ground it just didn't work. Those dang lights just plain went out every time the brake was pushed............

A copper ground all the way to the tow vehicle is never a bad idea.