Trailer lights always a problem!!! Anyone else?

Driving down the road getting ready to make a left turn and the person behind lays on the horn and hand signals the finger. Throughout the day, periodically hear a horn-"who was that for?". I Finish the day and back in and notice no reverse lights on trailer. Upon further inspection, my left turn signal isn't working. Thats when the finger and horns made sense to me. I am sick and tired of trailer lights,turn signals constantly not working. I noticed today that I am not the only one with this problem. I swear the majority of landscape trailers I notice today had some sort of lighting problem-No turn signals, break lights etc...I have 2 open trailers and they are constantly having electrical problems. Same story with my 16' boat trailer and the same story with my buddies two boat trailers. It just pizzes me off and was wondering who deals with the same bs with trailers? Misery loves company.

KC

 

Always. My son a converted electrician says its almost always the ground.LoL

 

Been a battle all summer brother!! Thank the good Lord the season will be coming to an end so I can stop what ends up being temporary fixes and fix them for good.

 

I carry a set of the magnetic type, like the tow trucks have. If we have a trailer problem, we use these till we can get the trailer in the shop to get fixed. Cost me maybe 50 bucks, and used them many times. Will use them tomorrow I'm sure, as I need to buy a snowmobile trailer. When I rebuild the trailers, I enclose all wires, and this seems to help a lot.

 

I have 3 Big Tex trailers and all of them have had light problems at one time or another. One time it was a ground but the majority its the sockets loosen up and the bulb comes loose. My new 18' trailer sometimes you have to kick the taillight to make it come on, I suspect the socket on that one too. Also, the 3 light bar on the back of the trailer(not sure what you call them) are always breaking bulbs for the rear of the trailer dragging on steep driveways. The best fix is to buy LED lights.

 

I just change the whole lite assemblies each winter so I don't have the problems in the summer. Cheap and easy and sure beats being pulled over or causing an accident.

 

Have you seen those bumper stickers that say, "Keep Honking, I'm Reloading"?

 

I swapped over to LED lights this year. I love 'em, people actually see the lights now cause they're so damn bright. I also have my wires enclosed, which helps reduce snagging.

Re: Boat trailer lights... Disconnect the wiring harness to the trailer before you plunk the trailer in the lake. chances are high that your lights don't seal well and that cold water will pop a hot light easily. Or switch to LED.

 

I agree with the LED lights. I got my clearence and ID light (the light bar with 3 bulbs that goes between the brake lights) from www.vehiclelight.com. I got my S/T/T from my local lawn equipment dealer and I have not been able to find that particular style on the web.

I just received my ID and clearence lights so I haven't installed them yet. I am hooking everything up with bullet connectors so the lights are easier to change out should the need arise. I picked up 100 male/female bullet connectors off of eBay for 10 bucks.

 

Trailer lights -- one of the most frustrating repair tasks I encounter!

I have a Big Tex, plus an older Viking. I rewired the Viking last Spring, but still had a problem a couple of weeks ago -- bad ground through a hinge bolt for the tilt bed. I hard wired around the hinge for sure ground.

The LED lights sound like the way to do to eliminate bulb failures. I checked out the site mentioned above. The pictures only show the lens, not the entire fixture. Does the body of the fixture have the same two-bolt configuration as other bulb-equipped fixtures?

Like Richard, I started mounting the fixtures with bullet connectors. This was a simple acknowledgment the fixture would have to be changed and to make the change simpler. Cutting and splicing wires makes for wires that are eventually too short to use!