86 f150
I wired a trailer plug in yesterday. Clipped the orange, green, and brown wires. Cab side of harness stayed single wire. Tailgate side continued color and added trailer light wire.

Hazards work
Park, brake lights work.

Without the plug hooked into trailer i have my signals on truck just glow. Hook it to trailer and signals flash but rapidly.

What did i do wrong?

 

I did use the blue 16~18 gage crimp connectors. Open ended hollow tube.

 

Ohh. My white wire i wrapped around my ball threaded shaft and tightened the nut down capturing the copper between nut and bumper ball plate.

I cut one signal out and held it together orange to orange almost like a solid wire again. Signal just glowed.

 

My EVTM says Lg/O is left brake/turn & O/Lb is right brake/turn. Did you get the right wires?

And, have you checked that the ball is truly ground? If you don't have a good ground you will get crazy results, like you are.

 

A 7 Wire RV Plug on the trailer side Looking at the back of the plug like you were wiring it should follow this color code.. The center Aux can be used or left open..

If you match the wires from your truck to the socket 1.Ground 2.Brakes 3.Tail Lights etc. and Have good grounds in both the plug and Truck it should lite up just about any RV..




Your truck Should be
1. Black 2. -- 3. Brown 4. -- 5. Lite Green w/ Orange Tracer 6. Orange w/ Lite Blue Tracer
That should get it lit up

Or a 4 way plug would be Plug white to Truck black - Plug yellow to truck Lite Green w/ Orange Tracer - Plug green to Truck Orange w/ Lite Blue Tracer - Plug Brown to Truck Brown

Make sure to put a ground wire from chassis to the plug on both trailer and truck ends.. Dont rely on the ball.. Ya dont want your lites blinking off and on when a state trooper is behind ya..

 

Yes the ball is grounded. The truck alone signals just act like parking lights for that side. Like it blew a bulb. But with trailer connected they flash at 2x speed.

If it matters there was the orange, green, 2 brown, 2 black with one of those being 2 wires together. Like speaker wire.

 

O.ly thing i can think is switching to the other brown.

 

Well no. Park lights work. So do brakes. On truck and trailer. I just dont understand how i can loose signals on the truck alone.

 

Ok, I'll think as I type. If the turn signals are dim w/o the trailer that sounds like you have lost the ground for the turn signals and they are going through something else to ground - hence the dim light. And, they don't flash because you aren't pulling enough current to heat up the flasher unit and cause it to open.

As for when the trailer is connected, now you are pulling too much current through the flasher and it is blinking rapidly. That would be the case if you have a standard flasher. How bright are the lights then?

 

Connected all lights are as bright as they were normally previous.

It just seems so weird. Im going to crawl up under her again tomorrow. Maybe something will stand out. I feel irritated and dumb. I can wire in full av systems in a vehicle but i can screw up a 4 pin trailer connector.

 

Ohh the lights arent dim. When i refer to glow i mean when i do the signal it just lights up and stays lit. The lights are bright. They just dont flash.

 

If the turn signals don't flash then they are being supplied with current from other than the turn signal circuit. Otherwise the flasher would open and close to flash them.

 

That's correct, the classic scenario is the voltage from the running lights are the culprit. Why? Because of a bad ground.

Do your lights flash with the running lights off? That would be verification that yes, your trailer lights are not grounded, and it looks like the ground on your truck harness is not that great either, they would be working otherwise.

The ground for the trailer should be run up to somewhere on the frame, the frame scraped clean, and the ground bolted there. I would also make sure there is a good ground wire from the frame to the battery under the hood somewhere.

The ground will then go through the trailer plug, and then it will be bolted to a good scraped clean place on the tongue somewhere. Usually the lights ground themselves through their mounting on the trailer, so make sure the mounting is scraped to bare metal so they get good contact with the frame of the trailer.

When you get it all working, if they are flashing rapidly when the trailer is hooked up, that's because you have the original style factory flasher. You will need a heavy duty flasher or a electronic flasher. The original flasher works on heat, and the heat is generated by bulb load. When you add the trailer lights, you are adding load, which makes the flasher heat up quicker, so it flashes quicker. A heavy duty flasher or electronic flasher are made different so they are not affected by bulb load.

 

I ground a bare spot on the frame of the trailer. Ill retry a ground on the truck.

 

I think Orange should be right green should be left Brown should be tail, Black should be ground But theres a easy way to figure it all out for sure..

First things first, Do you have a 12v test light or a Multimeter or any kind of voltage tester..

If not, run to Wal-Mart or Harbor Freight or Autozone or whatever is close and grab yourself one, a Cheap test light will be fine..

Test your test lite on the battery to confirm it works bu touching the clip to - and the point to + it should lite up..

Verify that the battery ground is connected to something metal under the hood (fender Radiator support etc) by at least a 10 guage wire and it is well attached and clean

Now you want to grind a nice clean spot to clip onto back where the wires you are working on are..

Make sure that there is no damaged wires touching the frame or each other and seperate them from the plug.. confirm that the 4 way plug you are using is not damaged so that the inner wires or sockets may be contacting each other

Make sure to connect the female plug to the vehicle and the male to the trailer The female plug on a 4 way has one exposed prong and 3 holes

connect your test lite to the spot you ground and turn on the headlights and touch the tester to each wire untill it lights (probobly brown) connect that wire to the brown wire on your 4 way plug

Turn off the headlights and turn on the right signal and use the test light to find which wire blinks the tester on and off that wire will connect to the green wire on the 4 way plug

Turn on the left signal test the wires and connect the one that makes the tester blink to the yellow wire on the 4 way plug

take the white wire on the 4 way plug, lengthen it, grind a nice clean spot on the trucks metal surfase somewhere and connect the white wire to it using a self tapping screw or drill a small hole and securly bolt it..

To confirm the plug works just clip the tester to the hole that goes to the white wire and turn on the lights and stick the tester in each hole..

make sure to tape or shrink wrap your connections and that they cannot touch each other or the metal of the vehicle..

on the trailer hook white to ground green to rite blinker yellow to left and brown to the clearanc lites and make sure not to cross them up at the tail lights.. if there is red and black wires then black goes to brown if you have a problem with both lights wanting to flash on the trailer when the blinker is on that is whats wrong..

From the way it sounds and refering to a schematic for that year truck Orange would be right signal green would be left signal Black would be ground and brown would be tail lights..
but if you use the tester the colors wont matter as you can confirm what wire has what function and connect it accordingly to the plug

The lights may be coming on because the brakes and blinkers are on the same circuit and your tail light wire could be back-feeding that circut somewhere.. but if you confirm the wires are not damaged and touching each other or ground that will take care of that..

I hope this helps..