Need help: Wiring trailer lights *Solved*

****SOLVED****

Well, I am stumped. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, please let me know. I am not a professional by any means, but I am not a complete virgin at wiring either.
To begin with, I am pretty certain my truck wiring is good, as I haul my utility trailer often, and always check my trailer lights before leaving - never any problems. It is however an aftermarket wiring kit for tacoma's that I installed about a year ago.

Here's whats going on:

Today, I purchased a boat trailer from my father that he never used. It had no lights on it, so I purchased one of those $40 trailer light kits with the wiring, lights and harness all in one package from princess auto.

After wiring up the trailer as per instructions, I had extremely dim lights (pretty much non-existent) . Thinking it was a bad ground, I cleaned up the ground contact point on the trailer and at the light mounting bolts. Still no luck. Assuming my truck wiring may be bad, I hooked up to a utility trailer my father owns, everything worked fine on his trailer.

While trouble shooting the boat trailer again, I noted that my truck's break light was flashing with the signal light, this freaked me out and I unplugged the trailer right away. My truck returned to normal with the boat trailer unplugged. Suspecting a bad wire in the new harness, I got my tester out and checked all the wires. Everything had power when it should and none when it shouldn't. I unbolted the lights from the trailer, and to my surprise they got brighter!! I am confused though because they shouldn't run at all without a ground... right? So I tested the trailer ground to the lights mounting bolt, and had voltage at the mounting bolt? WTF?
I took the lights apart to see if one of the wires was making contact on the ground plate or bolt, everything seems ok to me.

So in summary:
1. My lights wired as per instructions don't work and seem to send voltage back through my wiring harness to the truck.
2. Lights unbolted from trailer do illuminate, and truck lights work normally.
3. Wired up as per instructions, I seem to have voltage coming though the ground (mounting bolts) of my lights.

The only thing I can think of is I got a bad set of lights in my kit. I may try and pick up some new trailer lights tomorrow and just use the harness that came in my kit.

Wondering if anyone has ideas otherwise? Thoughts?
I swear I've triple checked everything, and I don't have any wires mixed up or grounding on the trailer frame.

Thanks for reading!

 

I just did almost the same thing tonight. I blew the Trailer tow 30 amp fuse. Replaced the fuse then sat at the junction box and checked each signal coming from the truck. They were all different from what was labeled. Mine is good tonight. It was about a 15 minutes fix but a test light on the ground then find the hot wire coming from the truck for the desired signal and then match them up. The instructions and stock labels were all jacked up. I thought I was all alone. Also, I use a resettable fuse while doing this which prevented popping numerous fuses. Check it first before tracing the lines because you won't have anything going to the rear without it. I too had the exact hazard flashing when I used the right turn signal. We probably bought the same kit from e Trailer. They hosed me twice now.

 

So apparently my rear crossmember of the trailer that the lights are bolted to was not getting a good enough ground to the rest of the trailer. I tried running a ground wire from that cross member to the main part of the trailer frame and instant fix. Lights have good illumination and no more weird acting truck lights.

Next project is new bearings and races... while servicing the hubs I found both inner bearings had grenaded inside the hub and mud brown grease.