tail light grounding?

[timlsalem]

Hey, does anyone know this? Got a HF trailer frame that came with tail lights. Are these lights suppose to be grounded? I installed a factory tail light trailer kit for my car and everything works fine. When I hook up to trailer I got nothing on trailer. I mounted the original lights on the back bottom of the trailer into wood. That's why I'm asking if these lights need to be grounded to the frame? If you look at the original setup for this trailer frame, the lights are attached to the frame with a L shaped metal brace.

[bobhenry]

Hey, does anyone know this? Got a HF trailer frame that came with tail lights. Are these lights suppose to be grounded? I installed a factory tail light trailer kit for my car and everything works fine. When I hook up to trailer I got nothing on trailer. I mounted the original lights on the back bottom of the trailer into wood. That's why I'm asking if these lights need to be grounded to the frame? If you look at the original setup for this trailer frame, the lights are attached to the frame with a L shaped metal brace.

Yep ! You have 12 volts goin' in and no place to go !

I left mine on the frame and still had problems with intermittant grounding until I got tired of it and hard wired a dedicated ground wire that goes to a central ground that goes clear back to the tow vehicle.

It is real simple I just took a mini worm clamp and trapped some stranded wire to the side of the socket and tightened it snug.

[eamarquardt]

HF frames are painted before assembly and then bolted together when the purchaser assembles them. Paint is an insulator so all of the individual pieces may or may not make good electrical contact with each other. Even if they do when the frame is first assembled, corrosion may break that contact at a later date.

As a result using the frame as a conductor for your lights is not a great idea as it may or may not be reliable. It's better to tie all ground wires from your lights together and connect them to the ground lead on your connector to the tow vehicle.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Gus

[gregp136]

Yup, we ran a ground wire to each light on our HF trailer, and we have had no problems.

Greg(and Laurie)

[timlsalem]

Okay, thanks all. I'll run a ground wire from the metal mounts up to the white wire that is grounded to the frame up by the hitch.

[timlsalem]

I hooked up a wire to each bracket and then connected those to a # 10 and ran it up to the ground wire on the trailer harness and presto, got my lights. Thanks all for the info.