Go BottomTrailer wiring help
 | laboiserie
Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 7 Durham, Maine 
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2009-11-15 166857
Hi Folks,
I have just bought an equipment trailer and am trying to get all the electricals to function. It is a 2006 Hudson trailer with what appears to be good wiring. The former owner said that everything worked fine. It has a 6 prong plug. My towing vehicle is a 2003 GMC 1500 with towing package and a 7 blade RV type plug. I bought an adapter to convert from the 6 to the 7. Everything seems to work fine as far as lights are concerned. When I plug in the trailer, the brake controller tells me that the trailer is disconnected. All functions work on the truck end except the contact on the truck plug that is for battery does not light my test light. When would this contact have power to it? Should it be live all the time or only at certain times? I have not tried the brakes yet since the brake controller gives me this error message. Thanks in advance for any help.
Bob
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 | earthwrks
Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 3853 Home Office in Flat Rock, Michigan 
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2009-11-15 166858
Sometimes they switched the center position as battery function with a backup light function. Since you'll need to have a breakaway battery anyway, you really should scrap the 6 prong and install a 7 anyway.
Cautionary tale: I really screwed up recently. I had a similar trailer that had the brake wires switched. Kept blowing fuses. Being in a hurry as usual, and no more fuses I used a piece of wire instead as a fuse. Ended up frying the entire truck-side wire harness. It was all one melted piece of plastic and wires. No one had one and the dealer said there were 28 on backorder--and may never be built anyway. So I removed the burned one and hand made a new one--on my living room floor. Took 14 hours. And lost more hair trying to figure out why I had redundant wires left over. But it works now. ....
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| laboiserie
Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 7 Durham, Maine
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2009-11-15 166859
Thanks for the reply. My trailer does have the breakaway system on the trailer. I still don't know why the prong in the one o'clock position on the truck side of the plug does not have any power at any time. That is the one labeled battery. Brake lights work, turn signals work, trailer lights work, don't know if the brakes work since I have not tried them because the brake controller displays an error code saying that the trailer is not connected. My thinking is that since there is no power in that battery prong of the truck 7 prong receptacle, that may be the cause of the error code?
Bob. L ....
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 | harvey
Join Date: Sep 2000 Posts: 1550 Moravia, NY 
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2009-11-16 166860
My 08 pu came with all trailer hook ups functioning. My 04 chev I had to hook up the batt cable in the fuse block. Check your harness at fuse block should be a Batt cable if it's a factory system. ....
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 | Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999 Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2009-11-16 166861
I agree with Harvey's idea. Generally they leave the battery wire disconnected or a fuse out to help prevent corrosion or short or wrong circuits. The user has to connect it to get power to the plug.
I'm not sure about the need to change the plug though, you only need six wires to make everything work, you can do it with five even, but it's not recommended.
Best of luck. ....
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