I don't want to bore y'all with the play-by-play of my trailer lights trouble-shooting nightmare but here's the end of the day tally:
- 2 blown fuses in the truck.
- 1 broken ground connection to mill chassis
- 1 broken wire in mill RV connector
- 6 wires chewed in two by mice
- 1 dead truck battery
All lights but the left blinker are now working. They were all working when I checked them last Thursday. Tomorrow will be a better day.
Don't ya know--- ya gotta love the little mill mice.LOL.
Welcome to my world. I use boats on trailers in saltwater. Lights last about a week. :-[
The corrosiveness of saltwater is something that never ceases to amaze me. You ain't gonna stop it...best you can hope for is to slow it down.
I have not tried to replace lights where electric brakes are also a factor. On simple trailer lights I often find it is easier to just replace the entire light cables than find that one broken wire. I do tear up a lot of lights on my utility trailer hauling firewood and posts and lumber around the place. I keep a spare light ready to replace when the time comes.
There was a point yesterday that I was reading continuity to GND on the electric brake pin of the RV connector and none on the GND pin. This was after finding and fixing the broken chassis GND connection These are adjacent pins and would switch right-to-left if mirror imaged. I'm thinking- "This thing is wired backwards...how has it possibly been working?". After a lot of head scratching I opened up the connector to see what the heck was going on. I found the white GND wire broken at the clamp-type connector and two others on their way to being severed. These screw-clamp type connectors clamp down on the bare wire but the clamping plates have sharp edges that seem designed to eventually cut through the wire. When I get time I'm going to terminate all the wires in the connector with spade lugs. BTW, I realized later that continuity to GND is normal on the blue e-brake wire.
I have an assortment of trailers around here and seem to run into that problem on a routine basis. Get you a set of the magnetic trailer lights. You can get where you need to go that day and worry about the lights tomorrow.
Wudman
Come get some road salt in those connectors and everything, makes it even more fun!
Quote from: SineWave on April 19, 2017, 08:04:52 AM
Welcome to my world. I use boats on trailers in saltwater. Lights last about a week. :-[
The corrosiveness of saltwater is something that never ceases to amaze me. You ain't gonna stop it...best you can hope for is to slow it down.
Liquid electrical tape....
Wireless magnetic trailer lights
I have spent more time than I care to remember chasing trailer light gremlins. ::) Snow and road salt caused a lot of headaches.
After years of trying to maintain trailer lights, I finally resorted to planning on being back at the barn by nightfall. Regards, Clark
I have a bad wire in my sawmill frame going to my left back light on mine. I use a set of magnetic lights all the time and just don't even worry about trying to fix the one on mill. It ain't worth the time. Too many other things to do. :) :) :)
For the past few years, every time I used my trailer there would be a light out somewhere. Finally I got tired of it when I noticed wires that were so stiff that they would crack and break apart if you bent them. So I ripped out all the wiring and installed a new LED kit from Harbor Freight. They look like very nice lights for not much $$, so its low risk if they don't work out. Anyway, for the first time I have 100% working lights.
After I found my sawmill completely dead one spring, from a mouse chewing through the magneto wires on the flywheel, I started buying this stuff and tossing the little "packages" into open holes in the frame, and up around the engine during winter time.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/SHAKEAWAY-MOUSE-REPELLENT-12-4PK-1.5OZ/28471949
i rewire my log trailer once a year seems the salt will eat any wire connection
one tip i will give you or any one that will read this get an extension cord with ground
and use that for your trailer wires will out last any other wires you will find as long as you
keep the connections dry i live in northern michigan where ice and salt are a gerentie for 4 months
all my trailers that dont get drug through log trails have been wired for more then 4 years now
if i have a problem i just lay new wire easier then chasing gosts that you find in trailer wires
I loaned out an old horse trailer once. He wanted to know what I wanted for using it. Get the lights working,I asked. It came back with an extension cord for the wire. He said that is the best thing to use.
Another product,peppermint and spearmint
Bonide mouse magic (https://www.google.com/shopping/product/7676596407892171434?q=mouse+magic+repellent&rlz=1T4SUNA_en&oq=mouse+magic&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidm_6b5LfTAhXB6iYKHSCaDGkQ8wIIIzAA#spf=1)
One cold winter day a friend got in his car and headed to town. He only got 1/4 mi. and the car died. He opened the hood and there were two rabbits in there, one alive and one dead. They had eaten through several wires. The only wires they ate were green colored. Gary