Just recently my trailer running lights have stopped working. My brake lights and turn signals work fine, but I can not figure out what is wrong with those running lights. I bought a new adapter for the truck and put a new plug on the trailer, still now running lights. Any suggestions?
Boats & Motors
Trailer light issue
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First You have to narrow down your problem to your truck or to the trailer. A test light or Volt meter would also be helpful.
Check for a fuse for your trailer running lights...on your truck. Check light bulbs in the trailer. Check for Broken wires? (the Brown wire handles running lights). Are your lights on "ON" and not Daytime running lights? I assume you have a ground wire because you have other light functions. However it still could be the ground (white wire) is loose corroded or broken.
Good luck trailer wires are simple in operation but still a pain in the Butt!
Many vehicles have two fuses for the lights, one for power at all times and another for breaking and turn signal. I've blown the one several times on two vehicles, a Dodge and a Jeep. Not sure if it's common to the vehicle brand or if other vehicles have the same issue.
On a previous boat of mine, I had a bad running light that would leak water in. It was the one on the very back center of the trailer that had three individual LEDs and was about a foot wide. The water would cross the connection between a couple of the LEDs inside the light and blow the fuse in the truck. Would only happen after I launched, and by the time I got home, there was no water inside the light. Took me quite a while to find that one. The fuse was in the main fuse box in the engine compartment. If that is blown, and you continue to blow it after replacing, I would look for a damaged running light.
I had a truck that would blow a fuse occasionally and my running lights would go on my trailer. I spent a lot of time looking over that trailer wiring and the power connection before finding out I had a blown fuse on the tow vehicle. Like Ulbian said definitely hook it up to a different tow vehicle.
Have you hooked it up to a different vehicle? You can drive yourself nuts chasing a trailer gremlin when the issue is with the tow vehicle. First thing that needs to be done is to isolate which thing is causing the problem. If it does the exact same thing on two different vehicles then you have isolated it to an issue with the trailer.
Work smarter, not harder.
It is likely the fuse, the bulbs, or the ground.
If the fuse is good, and the bulbs are good, I would look for a grounding issue
Similar thing happened to me this past weekend, officer followed me into boat launch and informed me that only the brake lights & turn signals were working and that he had seen me numerous times this summer without any issue, fuse had blown on the truck. Hopefully that's all that needs to be checked. Good luck !!
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