Trouble Shooting Trailer Wiring?

[Soundguy]

I like the tinfoil idea.. consider it stolen!.. I usually am stuck working alone.. even on 2-man jobs....

soundguy

 

[MarkLeininger]

I've felt like that about my trailer wiring before. The secret is to squeeze the trigger slowly, you'll get a clean shot every time.

 

[Blackhammer]

Trailer wiring..my nemisis

If nothing on the trailer is working, and you have power on the trailer side of the plug, then you likely have grounding issues.

I usually dont mess around with troubleshooting trailers, especially it it uses a frame ground. Its almost easier to rewire with new wire and run ground to all the lights then to spend hours chasing corrosion, loose connections and somebody elses work. If its your trailer, a rewire with soldered, heat shrinked connections and ground run to all lights, will save you headaches in the future.

My 2cents

+1
I finally just bought my first trailer that doesn't need to be re wired. On all my other trailers they used those blue quick connects. First thing I did was re run all the wire and solder the connections.

 

[J_J]

As far as trailer wiring goes, I have found out that there is no standard about which wires/color goes to which pin. There seems to be the U-Haul wiring diagram. There is the RV wiring diagram, and another one for commercial trailers. Also the gage of the wire changes for certain wires. As I said above, I have taken a multimeter and a battery and hooked things up, did my checks,and wrote down the results. Right now I am looking at three different wiring diagram. What I am going to do is trace out the wires on the trailer and match up wires with the correct pins. So if you borrow someones trailer, it might work, and might not. I have seen the testers for the 4 pins, but not the 6 or 7 pin. I am thinking about making one. What I have done in the past on the 4 pin, is to add bullet connectors behind the 4 pin, and if things are switched around on the pulling vehicle, then you can manipulate the wiring on the trailer to work.