Clearance lights issue

[DNeitzke]

We just purchased a 1993 23FLL and have found that none of the clearance lights around the top do not work.
Any ideas as to the cause or method to fix them would be appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
David

 

[JackandJanet]

I'd guess you have a broken connection somewhere, possibly at one of the lights or maybe elsewhere. It could be on the ground wire, too, which would disable all of them.

In my trailer, the running lights in the stop/turn light housings are also on that circuit. If my memory is not playing tricks on me, I THINK the positive wire for all the lights is colored green and the ground wire is white.

Check your tail lights to see if they function with the running lights activated. If they don't, your lights are wired like mine. The wires behind the tail lights are joined to the common wire leads with wire nuts. These can come loose or the joins can become corroded. I suspect the running lights are connected in the same manner.

I think there is also a connector for these wires in the battery box up front.

- Jack

 

[DNeitzke]

Tail lights function correctly just no clearance lights

 

[JackandJanet]

You're going to have to trace the circuit then. I'd start at the front, where the positive feed comes from the trailer plug. As I said, on my trailer, there's a junction block on the street side of the battery compartment. You could see if you have +12V at that point with your Tow Vehicle's running lights on. If you do, go to the closest running light and remove it from the trailer. Test for 12V there. At that point, see if the ground wire is making good contact too. Continue this way until you find the problem.

However, I just had a thought. In my trailer the feed for the +12V and the ground wire run along the floor of the bottom half to the rear of the trailer. Then, they go up through a cloth covered tube in the bathroom to the top half. All the wires are spliced by wire nuts inside that cloth tube (so that the top half can be separated from the bottom half). It's possible the wire nuts for the positive feed or the ground wire have worked loose there. (Your wire bundle from the bottom to the top may be in a different place and the cloth tube may not be installed.) You can test for 12V at the wire nut location. If no voltage, the break is somewhere in the bottom half.

In mine, a mouse or rat had chewed through one of the wires in the bottom half, and it disabled a stop/turn signal.

- Jack

 

[RichR]

Standing behind my bad memory excuse, I believe that the running lights are connected to the the wires going to the curb side taillight. I had a burned out LED clearance light and traced the wiring back and found a multiple wire wire nutted together there, both ground and running wires. Depending on the trailer model they could be connected to the street side as well.
Yes, I had a burned out LED light. The 2310H has all LED outside lights. The rear curb side clearance light was not lit and I figured it was a bad connection since LED don't usually burn out. But I pulled the light out and checked for 12 volts which it had. Looking closely and I saw the center of three LEDs was black. A new clearance light got installed. I love the LED lights especially the taillights, they show up so much brighter than than incandescent lights.