Trailer lights

[Markinalaska]

Well I worked on my trailer tail lights today. What should have been an hour or so ended up taking most of the day . I couldn’t get power to any of the lights from the front connection at first. After some head scratching I was able to get power to the left tail light but nothing else. I took the trailer connection apart to make sure I had it wired correctly and it appeared I did. Which made no sense since the right light was wired directly to the left light. I didn’t like the snap on connections used in the housing so I removed all of them. I then started re-connecting the wires together and then soldered them and wire nutted them to keep them from making contact with the housing. I still didn’t have any light on the right turn and brake but I did get the backup lights to work which then showed that the rear running lights were working minus the one on the left that is broken. The front running lights didn’t work but I wasn’t working on those yet so I continued. I ended up finding that the 1157 bulb sockets in the housing weren’t making good contact with the lights. Actually on both sides. The left was intermittent but usually worked. Those sockets use a rubber piece that allows the light to make good contact with the electrical wire. They are just old and not doing their job very well. I tried to find replacements locally for the sockets that weren’t working properly but of course these days everything most stores sell are made of plastic and I don’t want plastic sockets so I had to order some with screw tabs on the bottom from Canada of all places . Not sure when they will arrive but once they do I will have to disassemble the lights again and replace the sockets. But after all that was said and done I was able to get all the lights working minus the license plate light. The bulb in the plate holder had never been replaced from the way it looked, and it wouldn’t come out of the socket. So I busted the light and a bit later I was able to get the light out of the housing. The license light housing was riveted to the plate holder and it wasn’t an easy task getting it apart but I finally got it apart. The socket was shot, but not from me it was just a rusted mess. So back to the tienda I went. The local establishment had the socket I needed for that and I was able to get it installed. Funny thing, the socket used for the license light is an 1157 socket that only uses one side of the connection. So when I reinstalled the light I made sure that I used the higher wattage side, which now that I think about might be a mistake but we will see. I did all this so when my LED lights get here they will be able to operate without trouble. Once I get the new sockets from Canada I will have to remove everything AGAIN and install those. Sorry about the long winded read but I just needed to vent a bit since this easy job turned into a huge day long project. Next I get figure out why the front marker lights aren’t working. YEAH me .

Edit: I almost forgot, when I had everything apart I cleaned up the bulb housings and then used a chrome paint to help with reflected light. They look a lot better now.