'89 Excella, Mystery wire bundle, hitch area, photos

[cjack99]

Hi All;

Short story, always been a large mass of wires just outside the tank housing, lots of tape. PO seems to have been a genius at rapid engineering with tape.

Anyway, electric lift motor on the jack has always had a loose ground ever since I purchased the Excella, and today it was very cranky, have to jiggle and what not to get it going. Once hooked up it's fine, until you want to drop it again. So I started tightening up the bolts, and discovered his nibs had messed with the mount for the break a way plug, and the tape mass was in the way, so I got after it! Prior to me untaping it, there had been 3 or 4 wires coming from one end of the tape bundle, 1 of which goes to the jack motor, this one I understand, the others are a mystery to me.

Obviously there used to be something wired in up near the hitch point,,,, automatic brake sensors???? Anyway, my thought is to just do away with all the unattached wires, and simplify that mass, loosing at least 5 pounds of tape in the process. ( wish I'd taken a pic of the tape bundle, but at that point I didn't think I'd need your thoughts)

So,,,, any reason not to take the wire clippers to this mess so that I just wind up with wires that go someplace and do something??

Thanks for your time, cheers
p

[nickcrowhurst]

My 88 Excella had a similar bundle of wires. The extra ones were attached to remote sensors on each of the two propane tanks. The sensors detected how much propane was in each tank, and sent signals to the display on the panel above the front window inside the trailer. The sensors had long disapeared, so I stripped out the wires.
Nick.

[nm1oqrz]

My 88 Excella had a small light fixture attached to the tongue jack. It was suppose to light up the tongue at night for hitching up. It wasn't very bright and was worthless for it's intended purpose. Regards nm1oqrz

[cjack99]

Thanks to the responders! I removed 4 wires going nowhere, along with 3 wire nuts, a pointless in line fuse, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Refurbed the ends of the lp tank fill indicator wires, and sleeved the pair of them and routed them under the tank support, then up the center hold down rod. Lastly, rerouted the remaining bundle and 2 wire nuts so they go under the bracket for the breakaway plug. Result is much nicer, no wires to be seen from the front at all! Just the breakaway plug and the hitch "stuff".

I'm thinking there once was a frame mounted brake controller in there using up most of those wires, I base this on the fact that the 2 remaining wire nuts are involved in the breakaway plug, and the useless wires all ran from these two points, plus a power wire and ground.

Thanks again for the input!!

cheers