Exterior Lights: nothing happening

[kayaxi]

Ok, I have a 4-wire connector on our vehicle and the same on the trailer. I'm sure my ground is good to the trailer. I get absolutely nothing. No turn, no brake, no running lights. I know the wiring on the car has some issues but our pop-up camper and utility trailer both have at least one brake/turn light that work. I put all new lights on and wired them exactly the way the old ones were wired. Green to all clearance/tail lights, red to left turn/stop, white grounded to trailer frame and small white (as opposed to brown) to right turn/stop. I should get at least SOMETHING. I tried grounding to the skin to see if that did anything but still nothing. HELP?!?!
Oh, and blue for dome light is just hanging at the moment because I haven't gotten a battery for the Shasta yet.

[dawgpound]

Have you tried the lights on your pop-up or utility trailer to see if they are still working? If not, the problem could be with your tow vehicle.

OR

Do you have an In-Line Fuse, just before the battery in your tow vehicle? If so, it could be blown.

OR

Have you double checked your connections to make sure that they are not corroded or packed with dirt? Also, check to make sure that the wires going into the 4 pin flats are tight.

[cowcharge]

I would try applying power directly to the trailer plug to see if the lights work that way, then you'd know the problem is with the car. When I went to tow mine, I found the old 4-way on the van was too corroded to work. Replacing just the plug fixed it for me.

[idqrocks]

If you have a multimeter, set to DC and put test the output from your car.

I think white is ground so attach black lead, then put red lead on the circuits.

Try brakes and have someone press brakes with ignition set to on.

They should all read close to 12 volts. If they don't problem is with your car.

[kayaxi]

I'll try these suggestions in the light of day and when the rain stops. And Ross, the window not only looks great but is sealed tight with no leaks as of 1 hour ago. I'll post new pics soon.

[kayaxi]

Ok, bypassing the car completely I connected a battery directly to the trailer. Grounded the negative, tried each lead for the lights and still got nothing on any bulb. So it's not making a circuit. Time to check my ground I guess. Everything grounds thru the skin, right? So maybe the skin has poor connection to the frame. Is my logic correct?

[idqrocks]

Possibly. You can connect your battery ground to the skin instead of the frame to rule that out.

All the lights on my trailer ground out the skin. But when I first started non of them worked because the sockets in the lights were all so rusty that the bulbs were not making contact with the sockets.

[dawgpound]

I have found that sometimes the mounting screws for the lights don't have a tight fit, due to the bouncing around on the roads. I have had to make a jumper wire from the ground screw in the lights, to a new screw that I installed in the light base. By adding the new screw, it will provide a better and tighter ground to the skin. Remember not to over tighten the screws. This is how they can get stripped out.

Glad to hear that the window fits, David.

[kayaxi]

Ok, I'll mess with that tomorrow. The fact that none of them light up at all makes me think it's something bigger. I'll see what I can figure out.
The window was a perfect fit Ross.
I've neglected posting pics here so lemme fix that over in my Compact restore thread.

[boandsusan]

We had the same problem and we just couldn`t understand it as we had installed all new wires. It took 3 days to track it down. We found that we had nicked some wires with a screw whilst replacing the exterior skin in the rear. I say WE, but I`m pretty sure it was Bo and not me, lol.

[Deleted]

Three more things come to mind. Well, two, because one was the nicked wire, which is real easy to do when the wires are hidden behind the aluminum. The wire on one of my clearance lights got cut by the aluminum where it passed through the hole, and hot-grounded the whole system. That took a while to find. The hot ground would lead to a blown fuse, already mentioned. In most of my older vehicles a hot ground would blow the tails on the tow vehicle and the problem was immediately obvious, but in my Chevy, there is a circuit that is wired for the tow plug. The tails stay on in the truck, while there is no power to the lead for the trailer. This could be a possibility, not knowing the tow vehicle in question here.
Thirdly, one of the 4 wires is a ground, and quite often the connection under the trailer to the frame will corrode to a point of losing the ground, and cleaning the connection and refitting it will secure the ground. It sounds like you already would have found this if you moved the ground to the skin. Something should have flickered on if that were the case.

[dawgpound]

That is some good advise, Chris. I had forgotten about the Hot Grounds. Had that happen with our first Compact.

[kayaxi]

All good advice. Right now trying to find my multi-meter. While checking all of the above mentioned I want to check for continuity from the plug to the lights. I'm trusting that where the wires enter the body of the camper they aren't severed somewhere.
What sucks is that I feel like I'm in the final stretch here and things in life keep getting in the way. Is it wrong that I have tickets to see The B52s tonight and I'd rather just work on the Shasta?

[kayaxi]

Still no multi-meter (what did I do with that darn thing?) but I cleaned the trailer ground really well with a flap wheel on the Dremel Tool and now I have right and left turn/brake working and for running lights just the right tail light. The working tail light is fed by the non-working one so the assumption would be no ground. Which means no ground on any of the clearance lights either. What a pain. Tomorrow is another day though. Wish me luck.

[kayaxi]

Gave on on finding my multi-meter and bought a new one. What we have is one tail light working only. Oddly enough it's the 2nd in line. Since the wiring from front to back is original I ran a jumper to bypass it thinking it may be the problem. No change. So I removed every bulb and tested each positive lead for ground and all are fine. no continuity between the skin and positive leads. What I don't understand is why only the 2nd light in line works. I may just take it to a shop and have them do it. Obviously me and electricity don't get along. But 1st I'll browse this site for other people's diagrams to see if I've just missed something. To be sure I had continuity on my my positive lead I checked continuity from 1st light to last with a jumper and that seems fine too. What a mess.

[kayaxi]

And by the way, I'm doing this with using my battery so vehicle wiring is not in the mix at all.

[Gone Kayaking]

First I hope you went to the B-52s!
Many of us have been in this dilemma. Took me 3 days to figure out what was going on with mine. So if I'm understanding you now have brake, right left turn, but not running lights for the left tail light. Is that right?
I know this sounds silly and you likely have already tried this but maybe the bulb is out. Can you switch the 2nd light and the 1st light? Perhaps the problem is with the fixture. I finally gave up on my old fixtures and switched out for LED lights that look vaguely vintage when they aren't turned on. That did the trick!

[kayaxi]

Thanks, yes the B52s was a good time. A friend of mine works with Band Together NC doing benefit shows for non-profits. They raised over 500,000 for Urban Ministries of Wake County. Big Something and Southern Culture on the Skids were the opening acts. I did discover that I'm too old to stay out until 2am though, at least when there's a 2 hour drive involved.
Back to bidness, yes, I switched the bulb and still the same: one tail light and no clearance lights.
I haven't installed interior paneling yet so I may just disconnect all my connections and check each light individually with a jumper from the battery. Ugh.

[cowcharge]

If the second one on the same hot wire works, that to me means the hot wire is good and it's the ground that's bad.

[kayaxi]

Ok, I learned something new today. It was bothering me that only one light worked so I took it out of the loop and BANG! All other lights work. I guess what was happening was a hot ground that wasn't actually touching so my ohm meter didn't find it. just a nicked wire close enough to bridge once there was a charge. So I reworked that connection and all is well in the universe.
What tipped me off was that the one working light still lit after I took both tail lights out of the mix and the clearance lights still didn't work.
That just weird. Thanks for all the help folks.
Now we can start the paneling. Hurrah!

[Gone Kayaking]

yeah!!

[kayaxi]

I know. I'm down right giddy about it! This means we're weeks (rather than months) away from actually having a maiden voyage (even if it's just in the back yard). Butterflies I tells ya. Butterflies.