Community Forums

Reuscher · 01-27-2022, 10:05 PM

2003 Fleetwood Pace Arrow. No tail lights. Everything works except tail lights. Have checked all fuses. Have not checked the bulbs yet because I thought it would be strange that both bulbs went at same time and they are a pain to get out. Is it possible that when I installed a new 7 way plug and did not get the wiring correct the first time and I blew a fuse. Could the surge have gotten past the fuse and blew out the two tail light bulbs? I am going to pull the bulbs and check them. Thanks for any ideas.

Arch Hoagland · 01-27-2022, 10:15 PM

At this point anything is possible.

Pull one out and check it. While you are there measure the voltage coming to the bulb.

Are the brake lights and turn signals working or are they all out?

dabrooks · 01-28-2022, 05:46 AM

Do you have 12 volts for the tail light circuit at the 7 pin connector?

charliez · 01-28-2022, 06:03 AM

If they are such a pin, look at replacing them with LED's while your in there.

Country Road · 01-28-2022, 07:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reuscher

2003 Fleetwood Pace Arrow. No tail lights. Everything works except tail lights. Have checked all fuses. Have not checked the bulbs yet because I thought it would be strange that both bulbs went at same time and they are a pain to get out. Is it possible that when I installed a new 7 way plug and did not get the wiring correct the first time and I blew a fuse. Could the surge have gotten past the fuse and blew out the two tail light bulbs? I am going to pull the bulbs and check them. Thanks for any ideas.

Sometimes the 7 pin lights have fuses separate from the main tail lights, etc. Check for separate fuses for those circuits.

lazybyrd · 01-28-2022, 09:04 AM

My Alpine had a rear driving light problem where they worked intermittently. There was a broken wire at a plug in the main coach harness at the rear. It was troublesome to find. Finally found it with a test light.

153stars · 01-28-2022, 11:22 PM

Shorting a bulb pos. to ground will make it burn white hot ,that what bulbs do. Hooking LED car bulbs reversed doesn't even hurt them. The bayonet ones if they don't light you swap them over to reverse polarity.
Your right go back to last thing you did if it was plug most likely you took out a fuse.

THenne1713 · 01-29-2022, 10:22 PM

Yes, 99.9% (how ya like that #, LOL) of taillight problems related to tow harness.

Reuscher · 02-01-2022, 04:40 PM

While checking fuses I learned that the fuse puller tool that has fuse checker was reading fuses as OK. I decided to check fuses with a continuity light bulb checker and found a bad fuse. replaced fuse and got my taillights back. But as I finished wiring the 7 way plug I blew the same fuse again. Followed color code directions on wiring but blew the fuse. Oddly there is a white wire with a green stripe that has never been stripped back and used; I assume the ground wire, but not sure. Any ideas? Thanks

Arch Hoagland · 02-01-2022, 07:21 PM

Can't help you on the wire...

Any time I do any wiring on any vehicle the first thing I do is disconnect the battery.

Country Road · 02-02-2022, 07:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reuscher

While checking fuses I learned that the fuse puller tool that has fuse checker was reading fuses as OK. I decided to check fuses with a continuity light bulb checker and found a bad fuse. replaced fuse and got my taillights back. But as I finished wiring the 7 way plug I blew the same fuse again. Followed color code directions on wiring but blew the fuse. Oddly there is a white wire with a green stripe that has never been stripped back and used; I assume the ground wire, but not sure. Any ideas? Thanks

Over the years, I’ve wired dozens of trailers and as a general rule of thumb, I hardly ever rely on wire colors. What works best for me is to use a voltage meter and diagram the vehicle connector on paper so I know exactly how the tow vehicle is set up. Then I use my battery charger as a 12v source and check the wires on my trailer and match them up to the vehicle one at a time.

One thing to watch for is to be sure you’re not matching up the connectors backwards. It’s very easy to do.

Revconguy · 02-02-2022, 10:15 AM

What make/model of chassis do you have? Short story that is humorous now but wasn't at the time... I used to have a Winnebago motorhome on a Ford F53 chassis that I suddenly lost all rear lights (brake, turn, etc). I spent hours checking fuses, tracing wires, etc. Finally, after studying the chassis wiring diagram I discovered that all the rear lights route through the turn signal switch assembly. I ordered a new replacement turn signal assembly and installed it and all my lights came back. The installation took 15 minutes at the most. (Unfortunately, we had to cancel our trip while we waited for the new switch to come in)

MrMark52 · 02-02-2022, 11:29 AM

More often than not all the “safety” lights for a motorhome are wired via the chassis wiring, not the coach wiring. So you have to be sure your looking at the chassis fuse box’s.

Do you have the chassis manual? That’s a good place to start to figure out how the lights are wired and where the fuse box for them are.

You can’t “blow the lights” when wiring unless you somehow got an additional power source other than the chassis battery connected to the circuit.
You can short the circuit that feeds power to the lights - which is what it sounds like you did to blow a fuse (and it was a fuse noted to be for the taillights).
Keep in mind - if something was wired wrong in the lighting circuit, any blown fuses for that circuit wouldn’t blow until the parking lights were turned on, or turn signals were turned on, or brake peddle was depressed.

Also keep in mind that if both the parking lights AND the brake, tail, or emergency flashers lights are not working - the parking lights are a separate filament in the light bulb from the other three - so it sounds like you may have a bad ground.

Whose chassis do you have? Chevy, Workhorse, Ford?

Dgschaadt · 02-08-2022, 06:40 PM

MrMark, great response,

I have a 2002 Itasca, just changed the rear tail light assembly. Everything worked prior to exchanging out the entire fixtures.
When I changed rack light fixture, left and right, I changed 1 wire at a time to be sure I made an exact change out. After finishing everything worked, running lights, blinkers left and right, emergency flashers but not the brake lights. I know I need to do a fuse check, but thought to reach out to the community in the event I missed something?