trailer electrical problem's

[O'neal]

I cant keep a fuse in my tundra for very long while using my father in law's trailer,seem's like when I hookup and go for a mile or so then pop's a fuse in the truck but dont when sitting hooked up????
I checked the wiring in the truck no broken or loose wires,grounding,etc....and then checked the 5 pin connector using a test light.All light's work...turn,brake and running lights work,the trailer is brand new only been used 3 time's.

 

[gijohn40]

what does the fuse control? I use a friends trailer once and they had the grounds on the trailer switched with the battery... so my truck was sending 12 volts to the trailer and it was going straight to the frame of the trailer and then back to my truck via the hitch... would blow the fuse everytime... and the trailer was brand new as well....

so look and see what the fuse is controlling and then go from there...

Damn I miss evansston...

 

[1993yj]

When I used to use a trailer at work I had the same problem. It would blow the fuse for my trailer running lights under my hood every time I used the trailer. We hooked up the trailer to my boss's truck and same thing would happen to him, so from there we figured out there was a problem with the grounding on the trailer.

 

[O'neal]

The fuse it blow's run's my ext and interior lighting...dash light's,running light's,tail light's.The fuse does not blow right away when I hook up to it and plug in the wiring but will blow the fuse when I drive the trailer around for a short time.The only ground I'm running is the one in the plug itself.Is a grounding wire running from the truck's frame to the trailer needed? It just seem's it is losing ground and blowing the fuse

 

[gijohn40]

in the pig tail there is a white wire which is your ground... so no you don't need another wire... plus the metal to metal of the frame of the truck to the frame of the trailer via the hitch is another grounding point so thats ok...

The trouble is that someone might have confused the white wire with something else and have it connected to something instead of going to the frame ground... on the trailer i was talking about they had it going to the electric brakes on the trailer so when I plugged the pigtail in and applied power it would go thru the lights and then into the brakes and then to ground... instead of just to ground... in short the brakes were always on...

If you have a volt-ohm meter you can take one lead of the meter and connect it to the frame of the trailer and then hold your pigtail and check each hole on the plug and find the one that has no resistance and see if it lines up with the same hole on your trucks plug... (do the same on the truck frame and plug to determine the ground on there).

 

[Big Toyota]

Also you can check the lights on the trailer. I have had some problems
with lights that are new that we just put on.

 

[rollover]

I had a problem like this once. The new lights made in who knows where, had a short from the manufacturer. The plastic part that mounts to the trailer was riveted on. Next to the rivet was a brass strip that took power to the bulb. The plastic would move and or flex as we drove and the rivet would hit the poss brass strip. Boom fuse gone. Check your lights and how they are mounted.
Just a thought.

 

[waynehartwig]

Could also be a bad bulb...

 

[gijohn40]

the reason that your blowing the fuse after you drive for a while could be do to that your system is ok until you hit the brakes or turn on one of the turn signals... and that is when it blows... but just sitting your using your brakes or your turn signal so it doesn't blow...

 

[Herzog]

I hate trailer electrical. Just re-wire it from the front back. It will save you a huge headache. The last run in I had with electrical problems on my trailer; it took me 2 hours of fiddling with wires to find the problem, only to find out that there were more than 1 problems. And I was doing this while we were trying to get out of town.

So instead of trying to spend more time finding and fixing more problems, I decided to just run new electrical. It only took me about 20 minutes to run new wire all around and it was done.

 

[waynehartwig]

I hate trailer electrical. Just re-wire it from the front back. It will save you a huge headache. The last run in I had with electrical problems on my trailer; it took me 2 hours of fiddling with wires to find the problem, only to find out that there were more than 1 problems. And I was doing this while we were trying to get out of town.

So instead of trying to spend more time finding and fixing more problems, I decided to just run new electrical. It only took me about 20 minutes to run new wire all around and it was done.

x2 good point!
Rewire that bad boy. What's a trailer rewire kit, $30 at Schucks? And that includes lights..

 

[O'neal]

We found the problem's....On 3 of the light's the insulation was missing on the wire's where they went through the frame causing them to ground out.as soon as they were all fixed nothing had happened.Although we are going to go through all the wiring and rework some thing's in the near future.Thank's for all the reply's