Trouble understanding why my truck does not get power to my boat trailer's lights.

So I've never encountered this problem before and to be honest it has me stunned. Long story short, the boat trailer has a standard wiring set up. Me being a taco owner I have to use the adapter to hook lights up. When I hook up to the boat, nothing...... I don't get running lights, brake, blinker etc. So I hooked up to my utility trailer that also requires the adapter and everything works fine. So naturally you think it's the boat. I hooked my fathers 2004 ford ranger up to it and it works just fine. He gets running lights, blinker, brake lights, all of it. Have you guys encountered this before? I have checked my fuses, none of them are blown. Is there something that 7 pin set up requires that the standard 4 pin does not? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated

 

Check the ground on the boat trailer

 

Use a volt meter and work from the battery back to find where power stops flowing

 

+1

 

Ground is bolted down to the trailer.

 

Just because its bolted down doesn't mean you have a good ground

 

Ground on the trailer. Sometimes you get a ground thru the hitchball back to to the truck's system but not all the time.

 

I've taken the ground off the trailer and hooked it up again. The ford I hook the trailer up to doesn't work without the ground and it works with the ford so I don't think it's the ground on the trailer.

 

I'll check this but would this be the issue if the lights have worked on literally every other trailer I've hooked to besides my boat trailer?

 

Have you used a DVM (or even a basic test light) to check the outputs at the vehicle socket? Then with the adapter in place?

 

At the vehicle socket no, I did test it at the back of the trailer lights to see if I was getting power back there and I wasn't.

 

so something i learned is that you need to check if you have the fuse. i had the same problem and found out that Toyota never put that fuse in.

 

Are you using the same 7 to 4 adapter on both trucks?

 

Start by checking for power at the 7 pin trailer light connector on the truck. Work your way from there based on what you find. Also, using your test light or voltmeter, make sure the ground terminal is really grounded. If you have power at the proper terminals with your test light connected to the bumper, then check the ground terminal by checking for power between 1 of the power terminals and the ground terminal. Here's the schematic. If none of this makes sense, then you're gonna have to do some basic electricity 101 learnin'.

http://www.customtacos.com/tech.old...toyewd/06toypdf/ewd/2006/tacoma/h/em01d40.pdf

FWIW, I'm betting on a ground wire problem somewhere. It's highly unlikely to lose power from 3 completely different circuits all at the same time. If you're checking for power on the trailer with your ground clamp clipped on the trailer, of coarse you're not going to show power if there is no ground.

 

Thanks guys for all your replies. It was the ground but in a unique way. The back of my boat is very tail heavy due to having a mud motor. Long story short, I had to move the boat winch closer to the tongue to get the trailer to not be so back end heavy. One night I got a wild hair and decided to hook my boat up to my truck and connect it normally but instead of raising the jack I left the jack on the ground and actually jacked the boat and my hitch up enough and tried my lights and they worked. So I ended up taking a grinder and grinding the paint off my hitch and everything works fine. So the new weight on the tongue was causing it to not ground because of the paint. Thx for all the feedback guys. Just posting this incase this happens to someone else.