Author Topic: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift  (Read 5967 times)

jaysenodell

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Re: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift
« Reply #15 on: May 21, 2014, 12:29:42 PM »
pretty much what I have on my whiteboard. Now I just need the wanderer to return so the Mrs wont keep expecting me to spend time packing instead of working on MLC.
Mid Life Crisis in the making -- '02 TJ i4 manual, Aussie Locker magic pulling from the front

Harrison

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Re: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift
« Reply #16 on: June 10, 2014, 01:12:25 PM »
Ok, got my stop/tail/turn LEDs and am attempting to wire them up.

My Jeep has a trailer wiring harness with small black boxes attached and a 4 flat plug on it, I thought that was all I needed to use to make this a simple install.

I have everything wired up, grounds freshened. Really weird stuff happening... tail lights alone are good. Brake lights alone work great on driver's side, kinda dim on pass side, nothing on pass side if tail lights are on. Turn signal works great on driver's side, non-functional on pass side UNLESS brakes are on, then it works. If brake and tail lights are off, pass side signal is dim and tries to light up driver side as well.

These are a few of the weird things I get that changed as I freshened up grounds. I even went as far as running a ground for everything all the way back to the battery to eliminate that once I realized grounds were affecting things.

I took all the bulbs out of the sockets for the stock tail lights to be sure they weren't confusing anything, doubt they were. I cannot get the passenger's side brake light to work in the original harness with a known good bulb, could be an issue? I checked every single fuse.



Is the trailer adapter just going bad, perhaps?

jaysenodell

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Re: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift
« Reply #17 on: June 10, 2014, 01:49:07 PM »

Could be corrosion in the adapter terminal. Pull insulation back and clean posts of terminal. Socket side is harder...

Could be corrosion in the splice. Try tracing the trailer harness back to where it is spliced into the vehicle wiring. Check each connection. If you are ambitious, remove current connection and re-splice. You may need to remove a small section of the vehicle wiring if you can see corrosion on the vehicle wire (through insulation).


Other than that and your pest bet is a fetal position under the trailer...


Good luck.
Mid Life Crisis in the making -- '02 TJ i4 manual, Aussie Locker magic pulling from the front

M4wdFab

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Re: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift
« Reply #18 on: June 10, 2014, 01:56:31 PM »
hook a trailer to it to check?

mr.mindless

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Re: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift
« Reply #19 on: June 10, 2014, 02:33:11 PM »
Is the trailer adapter just going bad, perhaps?

This, and what Jayson said about checking wiring.

Have you put a test light on the trailer plug output side to verify weirdness exists there (as it should, given symptoms)
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oh lord!

Harrison

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Re: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift
« Reply #20 on: June 10, 2014, 02:47:44 PM »
I have not confirmed that the weirdness is coming from the harness, suppose I could give that a shot. At one point, it almost seemed as if I was getting a flicker of full juice from the dim brake light as I played with the ground, never could replicate that after though. That's when I ran the long ground to the battery. May try freshening up some more grounds, this Jeep definitely has a history of electrical gremlins I have fixed by cleaning grounds.

Chad said Chrysler stuff turns off ground to control lighting, assuming that is what Jaysen started this thread to address and what the set of black boxes that plug into stuff in the rear quarter panel are there to undo and make useable for a normal [trailer] light, as well as convert from 5 to 4 wire.

Is it likely that the issue is the same as what's causing the the stock pass brake light to not work? Looks like that runs off a different harness down that side of the Jeep, trailer stuff is on the opposite side. I will also check where that harness connects in since I'm assuming the signal for that and trailer harness must have the same origin.

etk300ex

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Re: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift
« Reply #21 on: June 10, 2014, 02:55:47 PM »
Its ALWAYS the ground

Harrison

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Re: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift
« Reply #22 on: June 10, 2014, 03:02:04 PM »

Its ALWAYS the ground

That's the problem? Or that turns the lights on and off, "Chrysler" style

mr.mindless

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Re: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift
« Reply #23 on: June 10, 2014, 03:13:31 PM »
There are a few switched ground items but I was pretty sure that tail lights were not among them.

Eric is just pointing out that it's ALWAYS the ground when shit doesn't work. because it's ALWAYS the ground. Especially when trailers are involved.
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oh lord!

etk300ex

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Re: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift
« Reply #24 on: June 10, 2014, 03:16:00 PM »
I remember my dad telling me that working on my 4 wheeler lights at 13 years old and its never been wrong lol

JEEPWERX

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Re: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift
« Reply #25 on: June 10, 2014, 07:29:49 PM »
X2 billion

dubt

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Re: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift
« Reply #26 on: June 10, 2014, 09:29:05 PM »
hats why my 4wheeler brake light doesnt work

Harrison

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Re: TJ side marker / blinker ground shift
« Reply #27 on: June 18, 2014, 09:53:56 PM »
New trailer harness fixed all my issues!