halfpint23

Husband came home from a long haulback with no markers or tails on the trailer. He said one turn was also not working AND emergency flashers quit him...
I get it home and he had crushed the socket housing (and bent all heck out of that stupid steel sideways box thing it was mounted in) trying to hitch up by himself in the dark.
Got it all apart, ONE scuffed wire, the all-black 12 gauge that I have listed as a ground wire (stock colors for the Dodge overlay harness), one turn signal (RT brn/pk) a little mangled by the STUPID scotchlok things that were used by whoever put the additional 7-blade RV plug inside the box. Those things are instruments of the devil, in my book, and whoever invented them should be burned at the stake, but whatever.....

Remade the turn signal connection as a soldered joint. Ground wire isolated. Brand new 7-blade receptacle installed. NOW there is still no power to marker/tail circuit. This is a 12 ga black with orange trace, and is NOT cut or damages anyplace - runs clear through to the front connectors that are just up behind wheel well on drivers side. Those connectors do not appear to have been touched by human hands since truck was new - they are, in fact, somewhat covered in undercoating.

I have some info from someplace(Ram Trailer Connector Wiring) that tells me the factory harness, which this appears to be, has this wire running from a relay in the big box under the hood. I have swapped out that relay for the one next to it, still no juice to the other end of the wire.

Any other ideas here? I kinda need to get this truck operational for towing again! Have spent parts of two days on frozen ground under it and just can't see or feel anything that would keep it from working. Any OTHER relays or fuses that I should know about?

weeseven

Had this problem on my 04 after rewiring ( do this a few times) still not working i was beating my head against a wall Keep thing i did something wrong checked and double checked i changed the relay it turned out to be the fuse
With that said check the fuses

halfpint23

Possibly incredibly stupid question, weeseven - WHAT fuse? I do not find a fuse in this thing that says ANYTHING about tails/markers. Pretty sure that 97 2nd gen is pretty different than an '04 in a lot of ways. Stuff really changed when
it went to 3rd generation.
All lights on the truck itself function flawlessly...

patdaly

From my 97 FSM, look at fuse 18, should be a 15A I have it as a Black/Yellow trace wire per the FSM, and should also control the license plate lamps.

Check it out, the circuit is pretty simple, just straight from fuse 1 ( 50 amp in PDC ) to fuse 18 ( also feeds fuses A&B in PDC and 17 and 19 in fuse panel ) then to the headlight switch, then to the running lights and license lights.

halfpint23

Holy wow, patdaly, and thank you.
I did finally see that a 40A fusible link (big fat green two-pole thing) was blown in the PDC, map says it's for "trailer".......... yep, feeling pretty dumb. Had replaced the relay for the trailer circuit already and still no juice, so had more coffee,and finally began to see clearly!

Also discovered the 15A fuse you mentioned, AFTER popping IT when I was dinking around with license plate light socket that's been twisted off by someone evidently used to Chevies Now have to replace both of those little harnesses too, but hey, they were cheep on ebay.

Got truck wiring fixed, tied back in safe places again, new plug in, and giganto spare tire back in place.
IMHO, the spare tire winch needs to be electric and have a remote control, so ONE person can put the darn tire back by themselves.

SIXSLUG

The trailer plug at the rear bumper is notorious for causing all kinds of lighting problems...might want to pull it open to see whats inside, especially if you can't find what blew the fuse....

patdaly

Her Hubby already had done that for her, with a trailer hitch....... Not the cleanest way to open one...........

cougar

A common problem I've encountered with all my years towing is a good ground. The trailer grounds through the hitch and ball. So often I have watched my lights flickering. So I run a separate ground with a #6 wire. If you loose your ground, that load is going to look for another path. Which means through another circuit.

SIXSLUG

IIRC 7 pins carry a grounding wire....

cougar

Theoretically, #1. But I have found it to be inadequate for a number of reasons, thus the additional wire.

halfpint23

LOL! yep, he pretty much 'sploded it. Many plastic shards and well squished steel box.
IMHO, whoever decided it was a great idea to WELD a stupid steel box to mount a 7-blade RV plug in, pointing SIDEWAYS, onto the actual box tube of the hitch,,,,,, should maybe be shot or something equally final.

Took about half an hour of quality time with a bar and a three pound hammer to get the thing beaten back to somewhat original shape. THEN I smooshed it over to make it just trapezoidal enough to point the plug out a little bit, and still not booger up the wiring coming in the back end.
If I ever get real ambitious I may just sawzall that thing off the hitch and replace it with a rearward facing mount.....

SIXSLUG

Mine got "removed" before I owned my truck...

Now it sits in 1/4" angle...

halfpint23

This, in addition to the usually insipid version of 12v circuitry found in most trailers. It's why I end up running all-new wiring on virtually every towed thing we have ever owned! In the process I always get rid of those cussed scotch-lok things too.