Serious question on trailer brake lights.

[floyd]

Originally Posted by mary and bob

Floyd, if the blown tire took out the brake wiring, is it possible that a short there could blow a fuse in the turn or brake light circuit? I assume that when the tire blew the brakes on the tow vehicle were used to stop, therefore power would have been in the stop light and trailer brake circuits for a short period of time. A member on the tnttt forum had a tire blow on some old sticky trailer, maybe a Scotty, or something similar, and it went right through the wheel well and beat up some of the camper interior. I'm still thinking the blown tire caused the light problem, but I could be wrong. Like the rest of us, without seeing the trailer, it's guesswork.

It is really not possible that a wiring failure on the brake circuit could affect the DOT lighting. They are separate wiring circuits each fed by the TV.
Some TVs have separate trailer service panels. You could check the fuses on the TV if it has such a panel. A freak surge or coincidence could have caused a blown fuse, but I doubt it.
Remember, the Scamp Dot lighting Harness is on the opposite side of the trailer from the blown tire.

[Thomas G.]

Originally Posted by Infogypsy

Get it now. Thanks. I am feeling rather depressed tonight over my beautiful Scamp not usable without any brake lights or turn signals. .......

The problem is likely a simple one and not hard to fix.

Worst case, get a set of these for $10 to $20 and put them on the bumper and hook up the wire to your tow vehicle. Use duct tape to double secure them.

This will get you safely to a repair shop or home if you have a problem on the road.

[Infogypsy]

I am taking the vehicle to Zeibart who put on the hitch first to check connection. Once I get that eliminated or fixed with fuse or whatever it could need, I will move on to other options. J

[GPJ]

I have one of these to check that the TV (usually someone else's ) is sending the proper signals to the trailer. That way I know whether the problem is TV or trailer very quickly. Vehicle Trailer Wiring 7-Way Circuit Tester - 6 Function LED Indicators - Taiwan : Amazon.com : Automotive

Its great to have in the campground when you see someone anxiously checking their connections.

[Infogypsy]

Update on serious question of trailer brake/turn/back lites. Yeah. I took towing vehicle back into ziebart and they found blown fuse in fuse box on drivers side. I believe it is a ground connection issue and now have something to work with. Not the blow out at least. Thanks to all j

[mary and bob]

I don't think a bad ground connection would cause a fuse to blow. One thing I have seen happen only a few times is a filament in a tail light bulb will break and cause a short right in the bulb. It is possible that the shock of the tire blowing out and banging against the trailer could damage a bulb. Not likely, but possible! Do you know what the blown fuse is for, tail light, turn light, stop light? That would help in your search to find the problem. I have an old device that is a circuit breaker on alligator clips, and a small meter the size of a hand held compass. The idea was to hook circuit breaker to a battery, run meter along wiring, when needle reverses that is where the short is. Usually smoking wires showed us first. It may be a process of elimination to find it, disconnecting lights until problem goes away.

[Infogypsy]

The fuse according to the Subaru manual is #1 trailer.

[RogerDat]

Arcing is a possible culprit, I assume when the tire blew the trailer got bounced around a bit more than normal. Possibly a bulb bounced enough to creat a gap and then reestablish circut with a jolt of electircity jumping across the gap.

Once you know what fuse blew, you (or your service person) now know what circut that fuse protects. Then it is just a matter of working your way along that circut unitl you isolate the place that is bad. Usually with a test meter.

I tend to start in the middle, at the hitch plug. Is the problem behind me in the trailer when I test at that plug or ahead of me in the TV when I test that plug. Then just continue testing in whichever direction does not test as a good circut.

[Infogypsy]

Sounds complicated. The hitch people do have the plug tested and working. The blow out caused a pretty erratic fishtail briefly. Will wait for my expert person to give feedback and go from there. The hitch people upped the amp (think its amp) to110, so they said.

[RogerDat]

Originally Posted by Infogypsy

Sounds complicated. The hitch people do have the plug tested and working.....

It seems complicated because it's unfamiliar.

If you think of it as having a bunch of garden hoses connected together so you can run a sprinkler way out in the garden, you know that water is coming out of the faucet (battery has juice) but not coming out of the sprinkler (tail light not getting juice) it' really no different than moving along the joined hoses opening each connection one at a time to see if the water is making it that far.

If water (electricity) gets to this hose connection re-connect and move on to check the next hose connection. When you find the hose connection where there is no water you know the kink or leak is between there and the last connection that had water.

Your repair person now knows that power is getting to your vehical plug he is in effect half way down the hose leading to your tail light. Can now check between trailer plug and tail light.

[Infogypsy]

Got it. Thanks. J