anyone know much about trailer brakes and wiring? we went to my mom's for christmas and took the horses...started to jackknife a bit getting backed up in the driveway when we got there and all the wires inside the plug got pulled loose. my dad and i put it back together, or so we thought. currently my Tekonsha brake controller tells me i have no trailer connected and the trailer has no running lights. brake lights and turn signals work fine. when we left, the right turn signal wasn't working.

my truck has a factory tow package (7-way plug) and the trailer has six wires, including a red one we couldn't figure out where it matched any of the wiring diagrams we had.

my truck is down again...blew the fender starter solenoid the other morning. i've never done that before and nearly had a panic attack when she wouldn't quit cranking after i took the key out. the new solenoid is in, and she's on the trickle charger cause now the batteries are dead. ima cry if i have to replace batteries and battery cables, which is where i'll be looking next if she won't start tomorrow. does $140 at napa seem way off base to yall?

and so, because my truck was out of commission, we took the cummins to go get hay yesterday...and her 4wd doesn't work. That plus muddy driveway was a very bad idea. had to call my buddy to come pull us out...he's got a 6.0 but at least it's a ford! we tore up dudeman's path pretty well getting out ...hopefully he will still let me buy more hay in 2 weeks!

 

Here is a good reference on the correct wiring, towards the bottom ...

Tropic Trailer - Wiring Diagram

 

Just got turned onto this site yesterday etrailer.com look it up and there are pages on wiring diagrams. I use a seperate battery or the trailer battery to verify each trailer wire when I hook up trailer wiring plugs & when I cut my plug off after a jacknife incident. Traditional hook up is yellow/L turn & brake, green/R turn & Brake, white/ground, brown or tan/Park lts, blue/Electric brakes, black or red/12V switched hot from vehicle (usually to battery on trailer), a 7th wire is accessory (?) usually the reverse lights on tow vehicle. There are 7 wire to 6 wire adapters don't know if thats what your using already. I prefer to rewire the trailer to the type of plug I use on the tow vehicle. Don't much care for the 5 & 6 wire connectors, either the 4 flat or 7 wire round. But, that's me. Hope this helps.

 

Check your fuses in the fuse box under the hood.
Coulda shorted something out.

=)

I thought mine was bad on left blinker, but it was just fuse.

140 seems high for starter selinoid.
Sounds like you got a GPR. *shrugs*
if i can get a GPR for 55 dollars, you should be able to pick up a starter selinoid for 35 i would thikn.

 

Or are you talking battery cables for $140?? Got mine on Ebay for round $100....

 

I missed the battery cable part.

I'm going for the make your own from welding cable.

 

Trailer wiring is pretty straightforward. Get yourself a 12V tester that looks like an ice pick with a bulb in the handle and a ground wire with an alligator clamp. Sometimes wire colors aren't correct due to prior owner work. Tester will clearly show you what each wire is for. I agree with Brian above, the extra wire on the truck side is likely a 12V keyed hot to charge a trailer battery.

 

thanks for the wiring info...i just don't get it, because it all worked before! i don't anticipate needing the trailer anytime too soon, so i will read up inside where it's warm! when the wind lets up, i'll tackle it!

probably gonna plug in the truck tomorrow too- it's very very cold by virginia beach standards...although i'm not convinced the trickle charger is working. i may pull my sister's batteries just to see if she'll start on them before i spend $140 on anything. my buddy with the 6.0 thinks there's at least a chance i didn't fry the cables. but there was an awful lot of smoke... :/

and the solenoid, btw, was under $14 with tax at napa. *crosses fingers* ohhhh if it ruined my 10x more pricey cables...

 

ok, just read through the websites...so my red wire is probably for my emergency brake and should be wired to the middle? both right and left turn signals and brake lights work correctly, so either we got mixed up and wired the brown and blue in the wrong place or else something else happened to those wires, i think. iirc, i don't have a white wire on the trailer side at all

 

Is your truck running? You had a few problems w/ the starter solenoid, cables, & batteries. Is all OK w/ it now? Solenoid shorting out caused battery & cable problem I guess. Different from trailer problems?

The trailer problems, how's that coming? Did you check the truck side of the 7 pin connector w/ a test light to verify all is good on the truck yet/first? Yes/no. You said the trailer has a 6 pin connector so I assume your using a 7 pin to 6 pin adapter when you hook up. Yes/no. Your 6 wire hook-up on trailer has to have 1-L turn lt, 2-R turn lt, 3-Running lts, 4-Ground, 5-Electric Brakes/Brake away brakes (your trailer does have electric brakes right?), 6-Power to battery on trailer. Your colors of the wire may not match as previously mentioned cause someone could have changed/repaired/spliced them. I would use jumper wires from the trailer battery and hook one to the connector ground then touch each connector one at a time to verify what they power. Right it down on paper and make sure it matches (opposite) that of truck plug adapter as you verify each w/ a test light.

 

yes- separate truck and trailer issues. we are also in the middle of a what is for virginia beach an extreme cold spell. i know yall northerners don't think 20s is all that cold, but here it is...although it's the windchill doing us in temps have been below freezing since about the time my solenoid issue surfaced. i've replaced that and put her on the trickle charger for a day with no result. i strongly suspect the charger isn't working right, so i'm tryng to find another one i can borrow to try n charge her again. i'm considering putting in the cummins' batteries long enough to see if that's my new problem, but she will also need the block heater now...if my fuel hasn't gelled. *sigh*

i will update on the trailer when the cold lets up...hopefully mid-week. and to top it off, our pipes froze last night and the property manager won't do anything about it...i miss running water even more than a running truck at the moment

 

Try a heat gun or haidryer on the pipes w/ one of your faucets open so pressure wont build. Don't use a torch on them directly or you could seperate the joints and have a leak. start closest to the first fixture in the house . Hope this helps. PS lived here all my life and cold is COLD.

 

i'm a tad bit confused now...my 7-way plug has only 6 wires. most are standard, but i have NO white wire, and my auxilliary for the middle slot (?) is red, not orange. sound ok? why would my trailer not have a ground? does this mean in spite of what my tekonsha tells me i haven't had trailer brakes all along?? why would everything previously seem to work fine and now doesn't? i don't get it

 

My truck had that same problem, when i tried to start it the starter kept going. It would keep going until I could pull positive cables off. Napa kept telling me bad batts or bad connections. I put on a new solinoid and had batts checked. All checked well, finally napa starter came out and one off ebay went in. Truck fires up great now, better than ever actually. Hope that helps.

 

It is not uncommon to only have six wires in a seven-pin, if that is what you are asking. Most folks don't pick up reverse to the center pin (which is where reverse goes). Most common mistake is using the center of the seven pin for a ground from what I see.

Lack of a ground usually means someone was trying to ground the trailer and truck at the ball (never a good idea but I see it a lot). Pretty easy to tell if you have brakes by simply operating the manual slide on your controller. I would recommend only using seven pin sockets and plugs. Seven pin checkers are cheap, work well, are faster than using a light, and are available at most automotive stores.

Good luck,

Steve