Trailer lights and 2000 Jeep Wrangler

First thing to check is that you have a good ground all the way through from trailer light to vehicle electrical. Usual culprits are poor ground connections at the lights themselves, next is trying to ground through the hitch ball. The white wire needs to be firmly bonded to the trailer frame, preferably on the same assembly as the lights and not just to the tongue on a tilt trailer. The vehicle pigtail needs to be grounded to the frame or trailer hitch assembly.

BTW: I have a hunch that if you turn the runn> Ok. I am hoping someone here has used a trailer with their Jeep

I bought a Putnam hitch and was not pleased... loose receiver fit, and weld splatter under the powder coat. You get what you pay for! Buy a Reese... __ Steve .

Hey Andrew, My 2000 did the same thing when I got my trailer. The bulbs on the trailer are either in upside down for the wiring or the wiring is backwards. Basically the bulbs are on bright as if you have the brakes on when you don't and when you hit the brakes they go dim like they should be with the brakes off. I don't remember if I flipped the bulb or pulled the wires and flipped them. It was just on one side of my trailer cause guys that wired it were in a hurry, it did not get to there shop till closing and I was there waiting on it so they did a rush job wiring it. I hope this helps. Tom

You have a hosed up ground on the trailer.

That means the brake light bulb fixtures are not grounded.

The brake lights ground through the fixtures. The running lights ground through the wiring harness. If the brake lights don't have a good ground, they steal it through the running lights giving dim light when all the filaments are lit up.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

Andrew, Wiring could be upside down and backwards (which would be a double / double and I'm not talking cribbage), but grounds can be so deceptive. I have not monkey around with any of the wiring in the area you are working so I do not know what I am going to suggest is possible. Most will say a ground is a ground is a ground - but not always. In other words, if you ground a wire to the frame in the front of the Jeep, it should be the same ground at the frame at the rear of the Jeep. But now add to the equation a loose footed ground such as a trailer. There is such a thing as a 'differance in potential' in the matter of grounds. To make a long discription short, if you are able to directly wire a ground lead from your trailer lights to the ground lead used AT the brake lights (if possible). Of course leave these both grounded but this would eliminate the crazy ground issue. This may take a bit of jury rigging or adding several feet of a similar conductor wire (extra grounds will not hurt as long as the positives are not grounded).

For those unfamiliar with the term a 'differance in potential' in grounds it basically came from my 30 years of installing on premis communications systems for the defunct Ma Bell. The service (dial tone or data circuts) coming into a building often used an earthen ground at the building POP (point of penetration). Next, if the electroic equipment installed inside the building used a cold water ground, for certain types of equipment an obsucre problem would occure. Now the deflugulty above took place in high tech state of the art electronic equipment which is not what we are talking about here. However, wiring the darn grounds directly to each other will cut down / out the time of resolving the mystery of the trailer lights. My guess is upside down and bacwards, which of course would include a ground problem. Steve