# Any body know how to fix it?



## theyyounggun (Dec 2, 2012)

I finished the trailer and it worked great. I took it to lowes and to try it out and get some hardware. It worked great. I pulled into the driveway. It worked great. I ate dinner. It worked great. I crimped two of the wires. Now when you hit either one of the blinkers they both flash like hazard lights. When I hit the hazards nothing happened. Breaks and headlights work. Anybody else had this problem/know what wrong?


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## tnriverluver (Dec 2, 2012)

Normally a bad ground somewhere will cause this. What do you mean "you crimped 2 wires"? By accident or on purpose trying to finish stuff up? What color wires?


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## theyyounggun (Dec 2, 2012)

tnriverluver said:


> Normally a bad ground somewhere will cause this. What do you mean "you crimped 2 wires"? By accident or on purpose trying to finish stuff up? What color wires?



Im positive none of the wires are crossed. The brown wires were what I had left to crimp. When I checked all of it the blinkers were working which had already been crimped the whole time. (I have a butt connecter with heat shrink for the splices)


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## theyyounggun (Dec 2, 2012)

But when I crimped the brown is when it all got crossed.


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## PSG-1 (Dec 2, 2012)

Are you referring to the tap connectors when you say 'crimp'? These are used to tap the brown wire for the side marker lights. It may be possible that you tapped power from the wrong wire somewhere. 

Also, check the connection of the white (ground) wire on your trailer's wire harness. If it's not secured to the trailer frame, this could cause flickering and other issues. 

The ground from the vehicle will conduct through the trailer ball and will power the lights, even with the white wire unconnected from the trailer. But, if there is dirt or grease in the coupler, you can see how this would cause intermittent power to the trailer's lights. And this is why the white wire is connected to the trailer frame, to ensure a proper continuous ground.

Hope this helps.


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## tnriverluver (Dec 2, 2012)

Normally when I have had this problem in the past it is from the white wire not having a good ground connection on the trailer or vehicle. The trailer ball and hitch are not usually sufficient to serve as the ground because of paint, grease, rust , etc. That is what I would check first. Then if that doesn't fix it disconnect one of the brown wires at a time and see if that is where the problem is.


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## theyyounggun (Dec 2, 2012)

ill check ground. thanks alot!


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## theyyounggun (Dec 2, 2012)

I cleaned up where the bolt for the ground bolts to the trailer with the dremel with a sand paper tip and got it down to bare metal but it still didnt do anything.


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## nlester (Dec 2, 2012)

Be certain your light bulbs are installed correctly. Normally one high bayonet pin and one low pin keep the light bulbs from being installed incorrectly. I bought a set of tail lights from China where they had forced the bulb into one socket 180 degrees out. Both tail lights would flash until I got the light bulb out and installed it correctly. It took me a couple of hours but I lucked out and found the problem I decided to check the voltage inside the light sockets.


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## theyyounggun (Dec 3, 2012)

I clipped the brown connections and just twisted them together and it does the same thing... dangggg


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## theyyounggun (Dec 3, 2012)

I unplugged both of the tail lights(brown) and it still does it #-o im completly stumped


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## theyyounggun (Dec 3, 2012)

I know im complaining like a two year old but this is a pain in the buns!


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## dkonrai (Dec 3, 2012)

check the 4 pin, sometimes the pins dont make full contact. i had almost the same problem, and it was the one of the pins not getting full contact


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## theyyounggun (Dec 3, 2012)

I was reading the instructions on the extension package and it said to connect the ground to the trailer so I did. Nothing. I saw where it mentioned coat the contacts in grease(supplied) so I did. Nothing.


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## PSG-1 (Dec 4, 2012)

Very odd.

Have you checked the power output coming from the vehicle? You can buy a little tester that has LED's, this will plug into your 4-pin plug on the vehicle, and the LED's will indicate if there is correct power/polarity on all the wires.

Another way to isolate it, is to use a 12V battery, with some test leads. Hook the negative to your trailer frame. Then, carefully touch the positive wire to the pins of your brown, green, and yellow wires, and see what happens. 

When doing trial and error like this, it's always a good idea to put a fuse on your positive test lead, in case you have something wrong, you will pop the fuse, instead of frying your wire harness.


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## theyyounggun (Dec 4, 2012)

PSG-1 said:


> Very odd.
> 
> Have you checked the power output coming from the vehicle? You can buy a little tester that has LED's, this will plug into your 4-pin plug on the vehicle, and the LED's will indicate if there is correct power/polarity on all the wires.
> 
> ...


I could get one. But I dont think that is the problem cause I have 4 other utility trailers that I tow on a regular basis that work fine. But the extension has a fat male end that wont fit on the stock car 4-pin so I am having to use the big fat round plug because that is the only one that will work with the extension. Tonight I will back my wifes car up and try it to see if it could be the power problem.


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## theyyounggun (Dec 4, 2012)

Wifes car didnt work either.


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## PSG-1 (Dec 4, 2012)

Damn. If I were within driving distance of you, where I could physically see what's going on, I'm sure I could get it working. But it's hard to be able to say, sitting way over here in SC. :?


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## theyyounggun (Dec 4, 2012)

Meat half way? haha


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## tnriverluver (Dec 4, 2012)

Are you using regular bulbs or LED lighting. Sometimes LED will not have enough resistance for the vehicles electric and can cause this. Also is this a new wiring harness? Is it possible you have a pinched wire somewhere? Also make sure the ground wire in the fixture is attached to the mounting bolts. Make sure the mounting bolts are able to ground to the frame. If these are LED factory fixtures they usually require their own separate ground wire instead of grounding to the frame requiring and additional wire that is not part of a regular green, yellow, brown, white set.


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## theyyounggun (Dec 4, 2012)

These are normal bulbs. The lights are brand new but the harness is...........well new. It is 30 years old but I never used it and took it out of the package this weekend. I have been thinking to just go ahead and buy another one and re pull it. The lights ground the mounting bolts on the lights.


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## theyyounggun (Dec 4, 2012)

I just thought about this..... on my guide ons are where they are mounted to and they are painted. I bet that is were they are not getting a good ground. I will try that tommorow.


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## PSG-1 (Dec 4, 2012)

theyyounggun said:


> I just thought about this..... on my guide ons are where they are mounted to and they are painted. I bet that is were they are not getting a good ground. I will try that tommorow.



BINGO! That would do it. =D> 

This is why I have a separate ground wire from the trailer frame, up to the mounting bracket on each of my guides, on both my boat trailers. That way, it ensures a solid connection, no matter what.

If you want to know for sure, just take a test lead with alligator clips, and clip one end to the trailer frame, and the other end to one of the mounting studs of your light. If it works, then you know for sure.


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## theyyounggun (Dec 5, 2012)

PSG-1 said:


> theyyounggun said:
> 
> 
> > I just thought about this..... on my guide ons are where they are mounted to and they are painted. I bet that is were they are not getting a good ground. I will try that tommorow.
> ...


That didnt work either! #-o Im going to go try the alligator clip method. But I polished up the contacts on the trailer to bare metal and it didnt fix a think...


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## sawmill (Dec 5, 2012)

Is this a tilt trailer or is the tounge bolted on to the frame? If you have either of these and you don't have a ground wire run all the way to the back turn the bolts holding the tounge to the frame. Father in law had the same thing and the marina turned those a couple of turns and everything fine. Hope this will help. You could also run a temp ground wire to the back and see if it works


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## theyyounggun (Dec 5, 2012)

It was a tilt trailer but now it's welded together. I took a oeice of wire and connected it to the two bolts on the light. And ran it up to the front of the trailer. Did the same fr the other side. Connected them up front and put them on the trailer and put the ground from the extension on them. Nothing. Then I just put them on the trailer without the extension ground. Nothing. When I say nothing that means that both blinkers flash. And when I press the brake the taillight goes out.


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## sawmill (Dec 6, 2012)

I guessing that you have an electric tester. Take the bulb out of the lights and ground the tester to the frame and touch the hot post in the center of the lights socket and then try the lights and see if you get a reading. If you do the ground is good. Try brake lights headlights and turn signal on each light. If you don't get a reading thru the light socket check for a reading thru each wire at the lights before it goes into the light itself. This will tell you if the light is bad. I have had some of the newer lights that you push the wire in and it locks no make contact at the lights. I have also found broken wire at this area of the light fixture also.


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## JMichael (Dec 9, 2012)

If you can turn on the left or right blinker of the tow vehicle and both lights of the boat trailer blink, they you've got one of two things wrong. Either you have the vehicle pigtail/trailer wired wrong or you have a short in your wiring. With proper wiring and no shorts, the 12v blinker voltage runs down one wire on one side of the boat and there would be no way to get 12v going to both sides at the same time.


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## theyyounggun (Dec 9, 2012)

Havent been on in a couple days but...I fixed it!!! I tried a different type of wire for the light and it worked.


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## zseverns (Dec 9, 2012)

I am having the same problem could you tell me exactly what you did to fix it.


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## Miller13 (Dec 21, 2012)

Find one of your buddies trailers and book to it . It may be your truck


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## theyyounggun (Dec 21, 2012)

After connecting the wires several times I had run out of wire. (Tinned strand) and it would work. But I needed more wire so I just simply cut a piece of stranded. That's when it quit working and I didn't think anything about it. But I needed more wire once again so input another peice of tinned in and it worked!


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## Miller13 (Dec 21, 2012)

That's good you found it , those old trailer kits that you could buy at a parts store gave one my friends a rough time once , It was the kind to go in the taillight harness since that episode I check the tow unit first anytime something was working good then starts acting stupid


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## JMichael (Dec 21, 2012)

theyyounggun said:


> Havent been on in a couple days but...I fixed it!!! I tried a different type of wire for the light and it worked.


I'm glad you got it fixed but you'll never convince me that installing a different type of wire was the solution. I understand that the problem is fixed, and all you did was replace a wire, but that says to me that you corrected a bad connection or a short or some other issue when you replaced that wire. LoL


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## theyyounggun (Dec 22, 2012)

JMichael said:


> theyyounggun said:
> 
> 
> > Havent been on in a couple days but...I fixed it!!! I tried a different type of wire for the light and it worked.
> ...


That's what I thought, because the wires were the same size and everything. It looked like it had a good connection but i think the strands were not getting a good connection because they were the lights where you push the wire into the lights.


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## JMichael (Dec 22, 2012)

Yea, I hate to use that type of light with the push through wires but it seems like most companies are going to that design.


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## theyyounggun (Dec 22, 2012)

JMichael said:


> Yea, I hate to use that type of light with the push through wires but it seems like most companies are going to that design.


Yep


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