Marker lights

[VeggieBullet]

Good morning to all members and thanks again for all the help.
Got the 120V issue fixed in the 73 and testing all the 12V lights inside and in proper working condition
Now the next issue to attack on this project are all the towing lights, since from the markers to the rear stop and turn...nothing works
in this kind of situations I really like to re-do everything from scratch for my peace of mind..
So based on the assumption that all the marker lights are in series just few questions
1) How to individually ground them?
2) How to fish the new wire?
3) access to the stop & turn lights?

[mimiandrews]

Our trailer is older by 5 years, so everything might not be exactly the same, but here's what I found working on the marker lights.

They are wired in parallel, with the mounting screw to the trailer skin being the ground point for each light.

The wires inside the skin are joined with a wire nut to the pigtail from the marker light.

I was able to enlarge the hole in the skin with a Dremel tool just enough to pull the wire nut through. Stay within the footprint of the marker light. I sealed the holes with aluminum tape and then used a good bead of Parbond around the base of the new light (went back with LED's).

Fishing wires from one light to the next is possible. If you're lucky, you can use the old wires to pull the new ones in. I found one of the circuits wired with 18 ga originally which had burned to a crisp carrying the load of five incandescent marker lights. Be sure to use heavy enough wire.

The circuits join the umbilical from the TV inside a small access plate under the trailer near the front. I had to fish wires up through the floor into the trailer and then back into the wall to replace the section that was too deep in the trailer to fish through. This works OK, because it gave me a place to put some inline fuses in each of the two tail/marker light circuits. They ended up in the curbside front corner of the trailer next to the end of our water tank. No more burned up wires, if the fuse does it's job.

My thread asking for help produced a lot of good info from forums members, including Inland Andy. You can probably find it with a search.

Good luck.

[wasagachris]

Originally Posted by VeggieBullet

Good morning to all members and thanks again for all the help.
Got the 120V issue fixed in the 73 and testing all the 12V lights inside and in proper working condition
Now the next issue to attack on this project are all the towing lights, since from the markers to the rear stop and turn...nothing works
When you say "nothing works" can you explain further how you came to this conclusion. 70's A/S have their own unique wiring pattern. If you just plug it in to a modern TV nothing will work or it will work in the wrong order.
in this kind of situations I really like to re-do everything from scratch for my peace of mind..
So based on the assumption that all the marker lights are in series just few questions
1) How to individually ground them?
Each light is grounded through a mounting screw to the shell
2) How to fish the new wire?
It will be impossible to run all new wiring from the umbilical to all the lights. The harness takes many turns and it attached to several different points. The 12VDC interior wires and the 110VAC wires share several of the run points and often all the wires are bundled together to attach them to the shell.
3) access to the stop & turn lights?

The stop & turn lights have "cans" that are mounted in the aluminium taillight housing. these cans are removable from the exterior.

[Inland RV Center, In]

Originally Posted by VeggieBullet

Good morning to all members and thanks again for all the help.
Got the 120V issue fixed in the 73 and testing all the 12V lights inside and in proper working condition
Now the next issue to attack on this project are all the towing lights, since from the markers to the rear stop and turn...nothing works
in this kind of situations I really like to re-do everything from scratch for my peace of mind..
So based on the assumption that all the marker lights are in series just few questions
1) How to individually ground them?
2) How to fish the new wire?
3) access to the stop & turn lights?

No wiring of any kind, is in series in your Airstream.

All the circuits have "parallel" wiring.

There is no need to fish additional wiring. All you need to do is find the wires that are already in place.

Exactly where are you having a wiring problem, first with the 12 volts DC?

Andy

[Lumatic]

The marker lights and tailights are on separate circuits so it can't be the same problem. To access the tailight wiring I think you have to drill out the fasteners from inside the trailer which is a pretty big job. Another problem is re-mounting the lights as you can't use the old system you just drilled out.

If you want to go through the work of rewiring for your peace of mind you can skip the rest of this message.

Before assuming the worst I would check for corrosion and bad grounds in the sockets and for continuity from the umbilical to the lights. Before you go fishing around, check your connections are good in the 7 way connection panel. I had a similar situation to what you describe and after spending a few hours cleaning things up I have had no repeat problems.

[VeggieBullet]

Thanks guys. Well a little clarification from our part.
The 2 AS that we recently got are real restoration or remodeling projects, the typical AS sitting in the backyard for many many years of neglected care and nothing works.
So we started working from the inside, that we might as well deal with all the plumbing and electrical before anything else.
So the 120V and the 12V issues were addressed and now we will like to deal with the outside electrical mess.
One of the reasons why we would like to re-wire the running/stop/turn lights is because of the age of the wiring and I hope this is not the case but the most common issue I saw before are wires that are burned out and they look and feel like they were toasted.