Possible Electrical Short?

2158 Views 10 Replies 5 Participants Last post by Q451990, Dec 18, 2009

UTfrontier

Discussion Starter · Dec 17, 2009

This evening I moved my trailer to a friends house. Before when I was towing, the park lights would come on when I used the brakes. I got used to it and had no problem. Tonight however, when I started up my truck, plugged in the lights, then hit the brakes, my left turn signal stayed on and never turned back off. Even when I tried to use the turn signal switch, it didnt flash, just stayed on. It does this with the brakes too now. With the headlights and park lights off, it turns off. As soon as I use the brakes, the park lights, dash lights, and turn signal turn on. Any ideas on what caused this and what I can do to fix the turn signal until I can buy a factory OEM tow harness? Am I going to find any of these oem tow harnesses lesser than $100? And where? I also thought I could smell some sort of hot wire, or burning insulation when I got out.

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colin123

· #4 · Dec 17, 2009

i was towing a 44' boat down to florida (not with my fronty of course, i was driving a kenworth. although i have moved a 13500lb 55' boat with my fronty, only moved it about 30' from one end of the shop to the other but thats another story) part way through Illinois i noticed the truck was starting to get a bit of load on it like i was going up hill but at the time i was actually going down hill. i looked down at the electronic trailer brake controller and it was going crazy, i was applying brakes to the trailer for seemingly no reason at all so i pulled over. after a bit of time looking about the trailer i noticed a busted light on the trailer with wires that were touching the frame on the trailer and was messing with the brakes. not quite the same as your situation but a prime example of how a simple short (that for some reason wasn't blowing any fuses... weird) can cause some very strange problems. your harness and trailer wiring would be good place to start looking

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colin123

· #6 · Dec 17, 2009

since you noted the smell of buring wire i'd say there is a good chance that the damage may already be done. i had to replace the brake controller on that kenworth that i hauled that boat with cause it never worked right again after the incident. check your relays

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colin123

· #8 · Dec 17, 2009

UTfrontier said:
Ok, since things are tight, and I dont quite know what exactly is wrong, I bought a universal brake light kit from checker and spliced it into the y plugs for the tail lights. When I removed all that I had installed, every thing worked just perfectly. Turn signals were good, no park lights with brakes or anything. I took a good look at the piece I took off and there was a huge amount of shorting between the brake light wire, and the turn signal, what do you know. Turns out the way I had mounted the converter box was rubbing those two wires together, and they finally touched and shorted out that converter box. I do plan on eventually getting the oem bypass trailer kit, but cant splurge on that now. Ill let you know how this all works when I go to pick up my trailer next week. Oh and if you were curious, it is a 6'x12' enclosed that I am using for a delivery business. Tows just fine behind the beast, and I cannot complain too much about the power. There seems to be enough there and more for what I need.

glad you found the problem and that all works fine now:goodjob:

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