something weird when I hook up to the car?

[59er]

has anyone had this before or know what it might be:?

I just wired my car for the 7pin connection and tested it. with the headlights off, everything seems fine. brakes, blinkers, etc work fine. but when I turn the car's headlights on and go through the same checks, here's what I get...

with no blinkers or brakes on it appears fine, but as soon as I turn on the blinker (either one), the side marker lights blink opposite of the cars turn signal, and the brake lights on the trailer both blink? the correct one (the side that corresponds to the TVehicle's blinker) actually blinks more dim than the one that shouldn't be blinking? hope you can follow what I'm saying.


please let me know what I can check...

thanks.
doug.

[thecatsandi]

check all your grounds first. make sure you are geting ground through your connector.

[markdoane]

I believe (and I may be wrong, memory is faulty) that the running light circuit is cross connected with the brake lights.

The old models had separate brake light and turn signal elements. They don't work well with modern tow vehicles where the turn signal and brake light are common.

So somewhere in the past, someone had to do a "work-around" that combined the two elements of the turn/brake signal, and got them mixed up with the running light circuit, which usually runs to a separate lamp in the tail light assembly.

My recommendation: start over, ignore any wire colors, use a voltmeter to identify each wire. Make a diagram. Don't do trial and error.

Good luck. I've been there and you have my sympathy.

[1963tradewin]

I have herd of this before. It is most likely a ground problem. Its like my grandpa use to say ground **** dont work. Pardon my french and good luck

[Moonstruck]

Definitely a ground problem! electricity is like water and will take the path of least resistance. As a result current feeds back through other connectors and causes blinking on side and break lights
Marc

[59er]

it does kind of makes sense that the brake/tail/marker lights would all be connected.... the trailer has after market lights on it now that likely do have all of those elements combined.

that would explain why everything works fine until I add the headlights...

[Inland RV Center, In]

Originally Posted by 59er

has anyone had this before or know what it might be:?

I just wired my car for the 7pin connection and tested it. with the headlights off, everything seems fine. brakes, blinkers, etc work fine. but when I turn the car's headlights on and go through the same checks, here's what I get...

with no blinkers or brakes on it appears fine, but as soon as I turn on the blinker (either one), the side marker lights blink opposite of the cars turn signal, and the brake lights on the trailer both blink? the correct one (the side that corresponds to the TVehicle's blinker) actually blinks more dim than the one that shouldn't be blinking? hope you can follow what I'm saying.


please let me know what I can check...

thanks.
doug.

Doug.

Not often, but it does happen.

Take out the two tail, brake light bulbs.

If that fixes the problem, then the answer is one of the bulbs has an internal short, which connects the clearance light/tail light and brake light circuits together.

Or, you could have a single strand of wire connecting those two circuits together, that could be in either end of the 12 volt cable, or, on the car connector.

Andy

[59er]

I guess by pulling those bulbs, I would test to see if the side marker lights did not blink with the cars blinkers?

I'll pull the after market lights tonight and see what's going on in there.

[Jim & Susan]

I also saw something like this happen once in a car when the tail lights had the wrong type of bulb in the light assembly.

Jim