New clearance lights ( wiring)

[Belegedhel]

I'm putting my trailer back together and will likely replace all of the original wiring. The old clearance lights ran off of a positive wire, the negative was grounded to the shell. The replacement lights I bought are set up with positive and negative wiring. So, for the eventual total rewire, should I use the ground-to-shell strategy, or run a negative wire ?

[Jammer]

Either will work. Electrical connections to the shell are a possible source of trouble. By wiring the negative connections together and attaching them to a common ground, you can end up with more reliable lighting over a period of many years.

That said, I grounded mine to the shell at each light, because I did not remove the interior panels necessary to get access to the wires.

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Hi, run new ground wires, it will be so much better. I've worked on campers with no ground wires and stripped mounting screws; No fun trying to get them all working.

[rayandre]

Depends if your interior shell is removed currently. I was not doing a full shell off resto so I ditto Jammers method on our replacements and ground each light to the shell. I did this after polishing the exterior and getting ready for a road trip out West. We recently came back from the trip and we did 6300 miles through 9 states with no problems to the running lights-worked great and were brighter than ever!

[Belegedhel]

Well, it turned out that I must have been seeing double when I reported that the new lights had a positive and negative wire, because when I went to install them, the negative was set up to ground to a fastener through the shell, and there was only a positive wire. Anyway, all new lights are in place, just need to run the new wiring and test.