Dim, inconsistent lights finally got tiresome on one of my livestock trailers.

I have worked off and on the past two weeks, about 60 hours so far, and am about a third finished.

I see why new trailers have such shoddy wiring; it takes forever to do it right.

I drilled out all the pop-rivets holding the poorly made original lights and stripped out all the wires.

The new lights are screwed on with coarse threaded sheet-metal screws, for a better bite in the trailer metal, for a more positive ground.

I am mounting new, better made, lights and running a seperate circuit for each set of lights.

I am terminating the circuits in a salvaged house-type circuit-breaker-box.

Every connection is getting solder and three layers of heat-shrink.

Every single light is grounded to the trailer and, also, getting a dedicated ground wire that also terminates in the breaker-box.

When I get all the lights wired, I am going to run each circuit through a fuse panel inside the breaker-box.

If a wire shorts out, it will shoot the fuse for that set of lights, without affecting the rest of the lights.

Trouble-shooting will be much easier.

Also, a short will not leave the trailer in the dark.

If I haven't mis-counted, there are 34 marker-lights and six brake/turn lights.

Also, four interior lights and plug-in points under the neck and at each side, above each pair of wheels, for a work light.

I am open to any suggestions/ideas.

Am I missing anything??

 

are you running this off of your alternater or its own personal generator???

 

Almost forgot, flood lights under the front corners of the brush-fenders, aiming backwards, and rear-facing floodlights over the rear doors, to help with night-time backing.

 

Enjoy - How about switching to LEDs while you are at it? Use much less current so you can use just about any gauge of wire. Also are tons brighter and last nearly forever if they don't get smashed.

I just finished wiring up my trailer and I know what you mean that it takes forever to do it right!!!

 

Sounds like your doing a good job. One of the biggest problems with lights is poor grounding. Make sure your grounded through the wire harness plugged to the truck and don't depend on the hitch for a good ground.

 

I am running a 10ga. ground-wire through the plug, so that the trailer will be grounded, regardless of whose truck it is hooked to.

Also, I am running a seperate, large-gauge, dedicated, ground through a plug of it's own, that will eventually terminate at a ground post on one of the batteries; this ground will eventually be on all my trucks and trailers.