So my boat trailer is a 4 flat. I have 3 white, one being ground. 2 brown wires that wishbone and 1 yellow, 1 green. I believe the 2 white are running lights. Brown break lights and yellow left turn, green right turn. I can’t find a 6 wire with the same color codes. Can I replace with 4 pin flat and just tap running lights into the brown wire? Or open to any suggestions. Reason for replacement is left side directional and break lights won’t work and keep blowing truck trailer fuse. All other lights work. Truck is fine. Please help.
Rewiring boat trailer
- Thread starter Tommyboy1959
- Start date
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Unless someone has modified the wiring, I think you will find that all 3 white wires are grounded to the trailer. Brown is for taillights. Yellow is for left turn and stop. Green is for right turn and stop. If there are multiple wires of the same color, connect all of them to the same color on the boat's trailer plug.
Standard Trailer Wiring Diagram
Standard Trailer Wiring Diagram
Thank you, however they go into the 4 pin plug, but can’t tell the colors because wiring is pretty beat up. 7 wires into a 4 pin plug. I pulled 2 running lights on left side, 1 light has a black and white wire, and the other one light has a brown and white wire. I assume black is power and the other light brown is power, with white being ground. I’m going to rewire with std 4 pin, and run a white wire and connect to trailer ground And 4 pin ground. I think it should be ok that way, what do you think?
If the wires are white, brown, green and yellow coming out of the plug, and are different at the lights, you need to find the connections where they change.
The diagram shows replacing the old plug with a new one. The original plug has the wires coming out at the connectons and to the right. I think you should use a VOM meter or test light instead of guessing. If the wires are that beat up you could have a short. Maybe you should just rewire the trailer.
The diagram shows replacing the old plug with a new one. The original plug has the wires coming out at the connectons and to the right. I think you should use a VOM meter or test light instead of guessing. If the wires are that beat up you could have a short. Maybe you should just rewire the trailer.
Yes, I’m rewiring with the diagram you sent. Question is , I pulled 2 running lights on left side, 1 light has a black and white wire, and the other one light has a brown and white wire. I assume black is power and the other light brown is power, with white being ground. correct?
Yes, white is ground. Could you have a bad light assembly?
If you are going to guess, hook up the brown wire from the trailer plug to the brown and white wire. Hook up the yellow wire from the trailer plug to the black and white wire. Turn on your lights and left turn signal. You should have a steady light and a blinking light. The flashing light should be brighter than the steady light. If not reverse the wires. If no lights, or just one, check to make sure the light assembly is grounded. From the trailer plug, one white wire should go to the trailer frame, one should go to the left light, and one should go to the right light. Other than that, keep guessing until you run out of fuses, or use a VOM meter.
If you are going to guess, hook up the brown wire from the trailer plug to the brown and white wire. Hook up the yellow wire from the trailer plug to the black and white wire. Turn on your lights and left turn signal. You should have a steady light and a blinking light. The flashing light should be brighter than the steady light. If not reverse the wires. If no lights, or just one, check to make sure the light assembly is grounded. From the trailer plug, one white wire should go to the trailer frame, one should go to the left light, and one should go to the right light. Other than that, keep guessing until you run out of fuses, or use a VOM meter.
Norm
Member
7 pin connectors do have a different colour designation. Personally, if you don’t have electric brakes I would wire to a 4 pin like the diagram and then you can get a 4 to 7 adapter if you want to use your 7 pin plug on your vehicle.
K, well we know white is ground on the running lights. The 2 fixtures are factory and there different size and again one fixture is black and white, one fixture is brown and white. I guess I can use a 12 volt battery and check each fixture with + and -. Chinese fixtures use black as power or white. Thanks for your help.
Question, is it advantageous to run two separate ground wires from boat trailer tongue and wishbone to the back and attach to the frame?
Z-Man 21XL
Well-Known Member
I'd stop all the BS and strip every wire off it and rewire the entire trailer. I say this for 3 reasons 1). because someone has obviously rewired it with "Whatever" Color wire they could find. 2). You definitely have a short somewhere. 3). Bad wiring only leads to more issues down the road. Do it right and get it over with!!
Thank you for all your help, CCE guy. I will run extra white to rear of frame. Didn’t see that st first. Thanks again.
Z-Man 21XL
Well-Known Member
No need to run ground wires all the way to the back and ground them there. Attaching a single ground to the frame up front is plenty. Although it is a poor, unreliable ground, once attached at the ball/hitch, a trailer is actually already grounded to the tow vehicles dc system. Keep in mind not ALL lights have a separate ground wire to attach to the trailer plug ground wire. Some are grounded to the frame when installed and only have a single hot wire. It is always recommended to ground the vehicle ground (white wire) to the trailer frame and any grounds for individual lights to the frame. By doing it this way, if all lights go out you have ONE ground to check. If an individual light goes out you immediately know to check only its ground.
Got it, I’m replacing every light with LED single wire. The lights are cheap enough and this way I know everything will work. First time doing a trailer, pretty easy considering. The factory Tracker plug must be exclusive to tracker, because each light was grounded with a white wire that had 3 grounds going to the plug. 7 wire that is a 4 pin. Thank you for your help, I really appreciate this site!
I rewired my entire trailer using the Hopkins 4 flat Y harness. Everything is already split for you including the ground. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0049MIXKO/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_NABZ49MZAAC6ZC4M93MD?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
No. I wasn't clear with my answer. The 2 white wires going to the lights are grounded indirectly to the frame because they are connected at the trailer plug to the 3rd white wire connected directly to the frame. And the following only applies to some Tracker trailers (like mine) with original wiring and lights. From your description, I think this is the way your trailer was originally wired, but the light assemblies have been replaced, and the wire colors are different.
Only 1 white wire is actually connected to the trailer frame. The other 2 go to the light fixtures, one on the right and one on the left. The light fixtures have 3 wires to connect. One is a ground wire (white) that connects to the white wire from the trailer connector, brown to brown for tail lights, and yellow/green for turn and stop lights.
BTW, I have had several trailers, and only my 2 Tracker trailers with the flat 4 pin connectors have had 3 ground wires coming out of the plug. All others had the ground wire from the plug connected to the frame, and the lights were grounded directly to the frame.
A different subject, but I saw and liked this:
This is ridiculous. It’s July 6th and people are still setting off fireworks.
One almost caught our Christmas decorations on fire.
maybrfd
Well-Known Member
Probably more than you want, but grounding is really about two things. One: amperage - how much current is the ground going to carry? This is a loaded question- you have steady state (normal conditions) ; transient state (turning something on or off); and abnormal conditions (lightning, fault conditions (think hot wire touches chasis); static, ect). Two: frequency of the current. The higher the frequency of the current in the three states mentioned above, the more the current will travel on the conducting surface. In the old days, really wasn't much of a consideration, because everything was DC , and only die hards would look at things like static discharge, and stray radio crap. However, with more and more computers, leds, ect. The more important proper grounding becomes. In fact grounding is a baine plaguing engineers for years. So simple in concept, but so difficult to achieve. Isolation, multipoint, single point, which to choose? Luckily for you, simple boat trailers have yet to advance to the point that most other devices have. If you decide you want to ground your trailer chassis in multiple points, I might suggest looking at where your overcurrent device is (typically those pesky fuse things) . You want to ensure all intended current passes through that pesky protection thingy. Adding multiple grounds can change current paths, especially under fault and transient conditions. The other major concern is darn corrosion stuff. For every connection to steel or aluminum you make with copper, or say brass. You have created the potential for a small battery (corrosion cell). It typically gets worse when you put it in water, and usually a major concern if you put it in saltwater. My recommendation is to stick with what the manufacturer, or what your wiring kit instructions say, clean the grounding point, apply some dielectric grease at the point of connection, and coat the exterior of the connection. Let me know if you want to get into the more technical details.
Wow, thank you for the info, good stuff. The reason I want to run aadditional grounds on each side all the way from front to back is, they say a folding tonge can be a problem for grounds. Moving parts not making continues ground, so by adding additional ground may keep it continues. New 4 pin has one ground to trailer from 4 pin. The old lights were bulb lites so they had + and - to each fixture. The new lites are LED + only figures ground to trailer. Ground on the four pin only that goes to the trailer, so that’s why I want to add and wishbone 2 more grounds, front to back by keeping a continues ground perhaps. Thanks again!
Ran wishbone negative made it easy to test With a battery. Didn’t have the negative from 4 pin to trailer attached to trailer.Ran it from negative side of batter to 4 pin, then trailer. Nothing when I testEd half of the trailer didn’t work when connected the battery. Tested to the added ground, that I wishbones and worked perfect. I guess unless you have trailer connected to tow hitch won’t complete the circuit. Left side works totally. Doing right side tomorrow. Thanks again!
Update, tested left side lights work great doing right side today.
Question, so I ran an addition ground from front to back. When I tested lites, connecting 12 Volt battery to 4 pin ground and each left side pin, yellow, and yellow/ brown nothing. When I connected to additional ground I added worked great. Is this because it wasn’t plugged into my truck?
Question, so I ran an addition ground from front to back. When I tested lites, connecting 12 Volt battery to 4 pin ground and each left side pin, yellow, and yellow/ brown nothing. When I connected to additional ground I added worked great. Is this because it wasn’t plugged into my truck?
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