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Old 03-22-2003, 11:42 AM   #61
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Previa wireing

Kath
Friends of ours had a Previa and they needed some little gadget wired into the van to make the trailer lights work properly.
Nancy
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Old 03-22-2003, 02:01 PM   #62
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Any vehicle with separate lights for turn and brake (usually turn is yellow, a la Euro style) has TWO wires that need to come together as one wire for the trailer (turn and brake are on one filament of the bulb), but need to not interfere with each other (the brake lights on your car will be flashing when you signal for a turn and vice versa).

They now sell a variety of wiring harnesses at XMarts and auto parts stores made for modern cars to plug right into the car's harness and produce the right stuf for Flat4/Bargman7/Round6 or what have you. These gizmos have the appropriate blocking diodes built right in.

In the event there is no pre-manf gizmo for your particular vehicle (in another life I needed one for a '93 Saturn), and you can't find a generic gizmo to wire in yourself, head on down to a *knowledgeable* UHaul shop and buy one there or have them install it.

Kitty, take it back and ask them to show you the diode block that needs to be there -- either they didn't put it in or the guy didn't wire it right -- might help to tell them that a friendly policeman gave you a warning and wondered where you ever had such shoddy work done...

Pete (aka Deppity Dawg or R.E.D. Jaquette for a brief moment) and Rats



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Old 03-22-2003, 03:52 PM   #63
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Home at last!

Good idea, Pete. We got the little beuty home without benefit of lights. I'm going to check the bulbs to make sure I didn't fry any of them, then I will go talk to the uhaul guys.

It looks like driving in 5th gear is a thing of the past, but the Previa handled our *very* steep driveway with no problem. Husband, older daughter & I got the trailer disconnected and pivoted around in place without too much difficulty, though I will be looking for a tongue wheelfor future use.

Looking forward to testing systems later.

Thanks for all the info.

Kath
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Old 03-22-2003, 08:15 PM   #64
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wheelie

though I will be looking for a tongue wheelfor future use.


You might find that stowed someplace in the trailer. Perhaps under the rear Gaucho (bulkhead). BF shipped with a tounge wheel.



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Old 03-22-2003, 09:41 PM   #65
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Wheels

I'll make a more thorough search tomorrow and maybe the wheel will turn up. I found four lightweight jackstands and put them to work. Found a bunch of cables for a tv, that will join others of their kind in my electronic grab bag in the garage. Did not find a pigtail for the electric. Hope to get one tomorrow so I can have lights.

I smell a little propane, but a thorough soapy spray down did not show bubbles.

I am not liking the look of a patch on the roof that holds some kind of aftermarket vent. Looks like they dumped some kind of glass putty on it. Yuck.

Having fun.

Kath
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Old 03-23-2003, 12:41 PM   #66
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wiring adapter

You should find a gadget something like this on your Previa, if they wired it right.


<img src=http://www.fiberglassrv.com/board/uploads/3e7dfb531c2e5R74209.jpg/>

Reese part R74209
This converts the separate brake and tail light to one wire.
However if your new trailer has electric brakes they won't work until you put in a brake controller, but your running lights and brake/taillights will.

The 7 pin connector has wires for the following-

pin 1-ground (negative)(white wire on tailer harness)

pin 2-electric brakes ( blue on trailer harness)

pin 3-running lights and tail-lights (green on trailer harness):sunny

pin 4-battery charge (positive from car) (black on trailer harness)

pin 5-L.H.stop/turn (red wire on trailer harness):red

pin 6-R.H. stop/turn (brown on trailer harness):red

pin 7-auxilliary ground or extra circuit(usually spare)(yellow on trailer harness)( round pin in centre)

this is assuming the previous owner didn't make any changes



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Old 03-23-2003, 01:09 PM   #67
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Great!

Joe,

Thanks for the info! I'm off to see if I can gather up parts locally. There is no critter on my Previa like that.

Who knew?

Kath :wave
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Old 03-23-2003, 06:45 PM   #68
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Quote:
Orginally posted by Kitty McKoon-Hennick


I smell a little propane, but a thorough soapy spray down did not show bubbles.

Kath
Kath, check the propane tanks to make sure they are "off" then check the stove and / or oven to make sure the knobs are not in "light" or "pilot" (oven) The furnace is most likely OK as they don't get used much and the fridge if you have one may have a propane option and the water heater could be on "pilot". It's unlikely a leak developed immediately after you bought it.

Mike
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Old 03-23-2003, 10:37 PM   #69
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Mike,

One of the tanks was slightly open. I didn't mess with any of the gas appliances today, but found that the fridge works great on AC and that my old RV battery is still capable of taking a charge, so I'll install it tomorrow.

All,

This is a remarkably clean vehicle. The plywood under all the seats looks brand new.

There is a very gunky attempt at a patch around the vent over the bathroom, though. I'll need to scrape it, pull off the vent and reglass it when the weather gets warmer.

What are the little square-drive screws screwed into? It looks as though someone smeared silicon caulk around every possible fitting, but didn't pull anything off and reseat it. I'm inclined to start unscrewing and rebed things properly. There is no evidence any leaks ever happened inside, though.

Kath
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Old 03-25-2003, 04:13 PM   #70
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Kath, one thing to remember about trailer light connections is that the top three reasons for failure are, in order, :

1. Bad grounding

2. Bad grounding

3. Bad grounding

Very often, you will get the wierdest symptoms because one set of filaments is actually finding ground thru another set of filaments, causing stuf like your taillights dim as the turn signal cycles...

Pete and Rats
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Old 03-25-2003, 04:19 PM   #71
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When we first got our Trillium all the lights worked just perfect in the driveway. So we took it for a 30 mile test tow only to get home and discover that it had burned out all the lights at the back of the van. Not just burned, melted to the point of needing pliers and chisel to get the bulb out of the socket. Luckily it did nothing to the actual wireing.

The cause was a bad ground in the trailer.

Now we know that if we turn on a signal and both blink that the connection between van and trailer is dirty.
Nancy



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Old 03-25-2003, 04:48 PM   #72
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A lot of trailer wiring arrangements rely on frame-ground and hitch-ball contact to get a ground. I prefer to run a ground wire around to each light and ensure it gets into the ground connector of the plug system. On trailers with house batteries, I also connect the frame ground to the battery (-) terminal. In fact, I recently ran a stout ground wire from my truck battery back to the rear frame *and* also connected it to the trailer ground connection.

When you stop and consider that it's possible to have all your trailer lights, your reefer and your trailer brakes full on all at the same time, plus maybe some other parasitic loads, while your truck is trying to recharge the trailer battery, you realize that you want a grounding arrangement that can carry the returns for all these loads simultaneously without failure or degradation of current -- that's a potential for a *lot* of amps headed for the trailer with only one ground lead to serve them all, and it might not be a good time to expect the other stuf to give up their share to the brakes...

Pete and Rats who don't have any grounding wires at all...



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Old 03-25-2003, 08:29 PM   #73
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I went to u-haul today and the installer came out and quickly determined that the wiring adapter he installed -- just like the one Pete recommended-- was shorted out. I'm betting I did that when I was goofing around with the wiring.

He said just bring the whole rig in and he'll fix it all, no prob.

Nice service, huh? :)

Kath
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