Wire Brushing My Ball and Other Trailer Maintenance

[doc henderson]

when I build or rebuild a trailer hitch, I often go up a size on the hitch and therefore ball.  I tend to overdo things.  so the hitch on my 5 x 10 foot trailer, with brakes and 3500# axle, it has a two inch ball, and the tongue is 1/4 inch wall 4 x 4 inch tube with enough length to jack knife without getting into the bumper.  i guess my balls are just bigger than most.   ;)  

[SawyerTed]

 :D Doc!

I try to keep everything at 2" or 2 5/16" just to reduce the number of hitches I have to keep up with.  I keep a 2" on or in the truck all the time and I keep a 2 5/16 with the equipment trailer. Of course the camper has its own weight distribution hitch.  I even switched the couplers on the wood splitter and the little Boston Whaler trailer from 1 7/8 to 2" so I don't have to keep up with another hitch or polish extra balls.

[doc henderson]

yes, I move away from the 1 & 7/8th inch ball, and the flat 4 wire plugs.  I used to have the 6 and now it is all rv 7 and I have adaptors for the others as needed.

[Southside]

My portable irrigation reel is European made and has a pintle hook on it, without the 4", 1000' of hard hose full of water it weighs nearly 8,000 lbs.

Well first time I went to hook up with it I dropped the hitch onto my 2" ball and it would not fit, so I tried a 1 7/8" instead and wouldn't you know it my ball got stuck in the pintle hole so I had to whack it with a sledge hammer to free it up. Ended up taking an angle grinder to my ball so it would fit. 

Guess the Metric folks have smaller balls. 

[kelLOGg]

Being fearful of rust, I ran my own ground on my trailer and sawmill. The 7-pin RV connectors have a ground contact so I used it.

[sprucebunny]

I have a bunch of trailers. Boat, utility and flatbed. The ones with brakes drive me crazy but the craziest I've ever been was one winter I went away for a week and when I got back, I suspected someone had borrowed my 5 ton flatbed. 

A month or so later I had kind of forgotten and hook up to it and head on down the road. Turn on my right turn signal ... and guess what ?! ... the brakes are coming on instead of the lights !!! ERRT.... ERRT.....

Someone had rewired the plug ! I fried 2 more brake controllers before I figured it out.

I have never needed to clean the ball but have spent plenty of time just plain rewiring whole trailers and putting new plugs on.

[YellowHammer]

Trailer wiring, especially brake trailer wiring is problematic for me.  One thing I was taught by a trailer dealer buddy of mine is to eliminate the truck side wiring and ball altogether when testing lights and brakes and he showed me how to build a "truck simulator" which is a round truck connector with wires exposed and ready to hook up to a 12 volt battery.  All is needed is a new vehicle side connector, not installed, and with the wires exposed.  

Basically, hook the vehicle plug ground wire to the negative side of the battery and then plug it into the trailer side connector. At that point this simulates the truck output and I can hook each wire of the vehicle side to battery and individually put power to the turn signals, brake lights, and trailer brakes.  It makes trailer troubleshooting very fast and simple and eliminates having to deal with the vehicle at all.  

Also, this allows using an open wire circuit detector, which sends an AC signal down the wire, both positive and ground and drag a detector down the trailer harness.  When there is a break in the circuit, the warbling tone stops, and that is where the wiring harness is broken, or the circuit is broken where a light isn't grounded to the frame anymore.

[Walnut Beast]

Good advice 👍

[chevytaHOE5674]

If your lights only work with the ball/coupler attached then you have poor grounds that need attention. 

Relying on the ball as a ground is bad because going down the road that connection isn't always tight. The reciever in the hitch bounces around, the coupler and ball bounce around, both connections fill with water, dirt, rust, etc very quick and in no way should be relied upon for a good electrical connection.

[doc henderson]

they have a rubber type compound in spray or brush on call liquid electrical tape. and I also use dielectric grease to protect connections from corrosion.  every 5 or 10 years, a trailer gets flipped upside down for a major look and repair, or sooner if it is giving me trouble.  a trailer I seldom use may get neglected a bit.  every time i buy a new trailer, my wife will ask if I am going to sell one of the old ones.  really?      :D :D :D

[Southside]

So you roll one over about once a decade and claim it was intentional for maintenance purposes. 

I believe @WV Sawmiller has done a lot of similar maintenance on his ATV.  :D

[doc henderson]

i use the track loader, but what ever works...   .  no point in laying on the concrete to check wires.  

[SawyerTed]

I've been known to put a trailer on the lift....

[sawguy21]

One day the boss asked me how I spent my birthday, we are longtime friends. I told him I spent it on my back in a snowbank fixing the blankety blank lights on the company owners blankety blank trailer so I could get home to hot meal and dry clothes. End of conversation. I spent more time fixing lights and brakes because they would not spend the money on a proper installation and let's face it, trailers are high maintenance at the best of times.

[Magicman]

Today's "LED assemblies" solved most of the trailer light woes by eliminating the 1156 bayonet bulbs.  The LED bulbs really did not solve the problem because the bayonet connection is still there.  

The "LED assemblies" are a sealed unit but even they are not fool proof.  LED's die and leave voids.


 I had to replace this light before making this last road trip because about half of panel went blank.  

[sawguy21]

LED's also don't generate heat so they ice up in our climate making them virtually useless.

[SawyerTed]

Watching the boat ramp while my wife gets ready.  This trailer came by.  

Some problems a good ground might make worse!  😂 



 



 

[Old Greenhorn]

Public boat ramps have been one of the greatest sources of entertainment I have ever enjoyed in my life. When I lived near the shore (the first 30 or so years of my life) we would often grab lunch at a crab shack and sit watching the goings on at the ramp.
 The stuff that goes in the water, and the stuff that comes out, as well as the methods used to accomplish both sometimes made it hard to eat my lunch. And if it's a married couple there can be a lot of yelling involved. :D

[sawguy21]

@SawyerTed I am surprised that mess was still attached to the trailer! We can only hope he got it fixed before burning anything down. :

[scsmith42]

I've found that this method works well for ease of working on trailer wiring (and welding).



 

[SawyerTed]

I doubt it was plugged in.  😂 

[SawyerTed]

I've found that this method works well for ease of working on trailer wiring (and welding).

No point in getting too dirty if you dont  have to!   :D

[doc henderson]

I have flipped my 6 x 10 and my 18 foot car trailer in the drive in front of my shop.  beat lying on the ground trying weld over your face.  lol

[Don P]

That is the nice thing about the Lull, I'm an ok welder if I can flip it around and get it in position.
I think Ted got a pic of my trailer, auto electric is black magic.

[SawyerTed]

. And if it's a married couple there can be a lot of yelling involved. :D

My wife and I were married 10 or so years when we got our first trailer-motor boat.  We spent some time watching the boat ramp at a marina before we got our boat. Bring from a rather Appalachian American community, we saw and heard some hilarious stuff! 
It was then we vowed to NEVER yell obscenities st each other!  We use walkie-talkies to whisper them at each other!  😂