Holiday Rambler Pigtail

[forever1948]

My Dodge has a 7 pin receiver. My old Holiday Rambler has an old 8 post pigtail. If I were to rewire the existing pigtail for a 7 pin what would the 8th wire be for? Any advice would appreciated!

[nightriderrv]

Mainly there is clearence lights, left & right turn, brake light, and a charge line for the battery I would just trace where run to. If it has elec brakes that will be one line the could be a spare...

[forever1948]

Thanks Nightrider.

My problem is the wires on he trailer are not colored like modern ones. There are 5 smaller gauge wires and three larger gauge wires. Here's what I have.
1. Smaller gauge white wire.
2. Smaller gauge white wire with some orange coloring on it.
3. Smaller gauge black wire.
4. Smaller gauge white wire with a red stripe on it.
5. Smaller gauge white wire (another one)
6. Larger gauge white wire.
7. Larger gauge white wire with some orange shading on it.
8. Larger gauge black wire.
Which wire is for what?
All of the new 7 blade plugs call for black, purple, orange, green, blue wires to be attached. I am afraid that if I just start hooking them up and testing it, that I will do damage to the electrical system. Any advice?

[nightriderrv]

OK then you can do the condunuity test ( I know it's mispelled ) to trace the wires it's a pain to do but it will work. You know there will be only one hot wire to the clearence lights and a ground wire sometimes there gnd by the screws they attached with. one for right one for left turn which will work the brake light function as well and a line to the elec brakes at the hubs. one might a charge line to the battery.

[nightriderrv]

Have you pulled out any lights to see if the wires just loss the color from fading. It's just a thought I came up with.

I would pull out the taillight and a clearence light also if you can see under the front to get a look at the wires that were protected it looks like they faded.

I have included some files that I have on wiring colors might be different but it all preforms the same....

let me know if this helps then we can go from there....

[forever1948]

Those are great Nightrider. Thank you much. I will keep you posted on how it goes.

Thanks again!!

[nightriderrv]

Cool it's too hard to trouble shoot just take one wire at a time

[Wallaby Dan]

I also want to thank you for the info!!! Dan

[Francesca]

Originally Posted by forever1948

Thanks Nightrider.

My problem is the wires on he trailer are not colored like modern ones. There are 5 smaller gauge wires and three larger gauge wires. Here's what I have.
1. Smaller gauge white wire.
2. Smaller gauge white wire with some orange coloring on it.
3. Smaller gauge black wire.
4. Smaller gauge white wire with a red stripe on it.
5. Smaller gauge white wire (another one)
6. Larger gauge white wire.
7. Larger gauge white wire with some orange shading on it.
8. Larger gauge black wire.
Which wire is for what?
All of the new 7 blade plugs call for black, purple, orange, green, blue wires to be attached. I am afraid that if I just start hooking them up and testing it, that I will do damage to the electrical system. Any advice?


Attachment 21675

The wires in the pic seem different from your description...No matter, I guess. That combination is really strange for an "older" trailer-or ANY trailer, really. I think it likely that you've encountered the dread "rewired by somebody that used any old color" phenomenon.

It may be that the pattern only holds true for the pigtail.

If you haven't done so already, look at the point inside the trailer where that "pigtail" connects to the trailer wiring. I think you'll encounter at least SOME of the original wiring. The colors for pre-mid '80's were typically blue (brakes), heavy white (ground), heavy black(12v power main supply- there should be a fuse in this one). and three more: red, green, yellow- used for either interior or exterior 12v lights etc.

If the trailer's newer than the late '80's or early '90's, you may encounter this newer combination

[nightriderrv]

I hate when a mess like that comes around BUT it can be fixed

[forever1948]

Nightrider - I started to do continuity tests. Good news: I am getting reads on all the lights and brakes. Bad news: Some wires lead to more than one light.I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing, I just need to know figure out what each does. Lucky for me I had a 25 foot length of wire to extend my tester. One step at a time. I just gotta be patient.

Fransesca - Thank you for your guidelines. They are an immense help. I did dig a little deeper on the wires to try and get a look at their true color. Guess what? No blue, black, green, blue or anything. I don't think it's a backyard job either. Looks to be factory to me. What do I know though.

Oh well, I will get it figured out. Does anybody know where I can get my mitts on a manual for this TT? 1975 Holiday Rambler. 30'

[nightriderrv]

You will have the same wire for the clearence lights

You will have that same clearence light wire running to the tail lights for the running light function

Then you will have one wire for the left and one wire for the right turn function

There will one for the brakes they might have a ground wire ran with it but you can just ground to frame and it will be fine

So that 4 wires so far

You will have a ground big white
One for the battery it might run to the converter first then back I've seen that before

6 down

Just do 1 at a time then lable you can take a battery and test lights for function once circuit is confirmed then lable good work so far

Just by chance is there white back up lights that would be on one wire too

[Francesca]

I've been mulling over the question of the reason for eight wires.

On some older trailers, an extra "hot" was provided directly from the tow vehicle to the fridge, the purpose being to power it directly by 12volt while traveling.

You say you've got two heavy whites (usually ground) and one heavy black (usually main 12v feed).

Since the whole shootin' match is out of the ordinary, I propose that in your case, white is likely 12v power main feeds (one of which goes straight to the fridge), and black is ground.
Note: There should be fuses in the 12v hot line(s)- their presence in the white wires would tend to confirm this color reversal.

Also
If as you say the colors inside the trailer are consistent with what you see at the pigtail, you may be able to preliminarily further verify this color-reversal by looking at the wire color of ground connections elsewhere in the unit. For example, all the running lights will be wired the same- one (whatever!) color for hot, and one for ground. If the second wire is BLACK, that's likely the ground color for the whole system, and white is likely 12v feed..

[nightriderrv]

That one got me too, I have not seen to many like this not to bad to trace just takes time to sort it out....