trailor lights

BURNSY23

Seaman
Joined
May 20, 2010
Messages
52
does each taillight have to be grounded or will just one ground up front work for both lights? Thanks!
 

sunrunner190

Cadet
Joined
Mar 23, 2009
Messages
6
Re: trailor lights

If each light has a good ground to the frame you are ok. The ground contacts can go bad over time and have to be cleaned up. Check all your ground contact points.
 

BURNSY23

Seaman
Joined
May 20, 2010
Messages
52
Re: trailor lights

but the lights only have 2 wires, brown/yello, and brown/green, coming out of them. How are they grounded?
 

JBow

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Apr 10, 2010
Messages
47
Re: trailor lights

but the lights only have 2 wires, brown/yello, and brown/green, coming out of them. How are they grounded?
If your lamps only have 2 wires they are internaly grounded. The ground is made when they are bolted to the trailer frame. Something that is often overlooked on old tilt trailers is that the coupler part of the frame does not have a positive ground conection with the rear tilt portion and they need a jumper wire installed to make a good ground between the 2 parts. Just a little something to think about.
 

freeisforme

Petty Officer 2nd Class
Joined
Mar 23, 2009
Messages
184
Re: trailor lights

I normally run an extra ground wire from the white wire back to the lights, this eliminates issues down the road and if you trailer frame tilts or bolts together, this gives you a direct ground to the tow vehicle's plug.
 

bruceb58

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Mar 5, 2006
Messages
30,454
Re: trailor lights

Just make sure every light has a good clean ground. It grounds through the mounting studs. Grind the metal so its bare, install the lights and either paint over them or apply some grease.

If you run the extra ground wire to the mounting studs, you have just doubled the complexity of your wiring and its going to double the work finding the problem when your lights eventually stop working. Its unnecessary.
 
Joined
Aug 14, 2010
Messages
5
Re: trailor lights

JBow is right. I ran into this issue on my trailer with the grounding problem and it took two days, replacing all lighting and both truck and trailer connections to figure this out. We ran a jumper wire and hooked to the rear section of frame and it worked.
 

Wingedwheel

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Joined
Jun 16, 2009
Messages
1,071
Re: trailor lights

When all else fails, read the writing on the package thats normally there to explain these things.
 
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