Running lights GONE

[SoCal Solera]

Help ?
On the last leg of my Washington state trip my running lights on the camper quit...
They work at the front head lights and the brake lights work but not rear clearance lights or the
License plate light.
I've checked all the fuses I could find in the cab and by the RV door and below the oven in the camper..
I hate going to the dealer and leaving it for weeks.

Any ideas ?

John
So. Cal Solera

[jimh]

what abt the tail lights?
on my last trailer, they ran one wire around the trailer for clearance lights and tail lights. one trip i had one light that worked, the left side marker. when i pulled the left side marker, found that they brought the wire there first. then they connected a wire from there to the next light...and so on. when u looked down the left side of the trailer and saw the left front clearance light burning and the left rear clearance light burning, u had connection all the way around.
if u have tail lights, i would go into them and see the supply wire was not making contact in one. solve that, and u lights may come back.

regardless of what type vehicle, u have to find the last place u have 12 v. i would think they ran one wire for the tail, plate, and marker lights.

[SoCal Solera]

Thanks Jim,
I'm trying to do just that, but the wire loom is ? Way up above the holding tanks ?
I really get the feeling it's a fuse because the brake lights and turn signals work fine
As do the cab running lights.
I am spending a lot of time under it looking for ?

John
SoCal Solera

[cfsoistman]

Could be just a bad ground. After some time corrosion may build up where the ground wire is connected to the frame. I had no headlights one morning while everything else was fine. After I traced it out I found FR had grounded the headlights to the frame with an aluminum self-taping trim screw. No paint was removed where the terminal contacted the frame, so the threads were the only connection. THe connection had oxidized so I had no headlight. I removed the screw, wire-wheeled off some paint, drilled a hole and bolted the connection together. Spray terminal protectant on the connection. It has been fine since.

[bill and theresa]

could also be a fuse on the tv. mine quit and it was a fuse under the hood of my truck.

[jimh]

the brake and turn signal is probably 1 wire to each light (unless ur brake and turn signal light are seperate).
i'm getting the sense that this is a motor home. if so, the wiring to the front parking lights may be seperate from those going to the rear.

if u haven't actually pulled the fuse that goes to that, it would be worth a try and see if one might be blown and doesn't appear to be.

i wouldn't suspect any problem with the wiring between source and lights. most likely will be at one end or the other.

what i said abt my '84 trailer, they had a buss at each light with a knife type contact. push the end of the wire into it and it would slice thru the insulation. they would do the same with a seperate wire going to the next one. it was a hot bed for corrosion. my 2002 the connections are not like that. probably isn't that way on urs either.
if u can determine (color code) which wire supplies the rear, i'd check each end. i'd start at the switch then work back. u already know u don't have it at the back.
don't rule out the ground but if ur brake lights are working, the ground is most likely good.
one thing i had suggested to someone else was to go to the back , pull one of the lights and apply 12 volts and see if they light. will give an idea abt the wiring being ok across there. my thought there was to find if one didn't work and to check from there back to see if there were bad contacts (bulb had to be good). not sure that will tell u anything except that the wiring is good back there to all lights. that would lead u back to the source. that was designed to find if one of those daisy chained contacts was bad. would keep the idea in the back of my mind but probably wouldn't suggest it unless all else had failed. think it has a low chance of sucess.

[papap]

Bill this is a Motorhome.

[SoCal Solera]

Well with the help of Mike at FR I found the fuse box responsible for the blown fuse...
It is in the sewer/electrical compartment top left side and has a sticker saying "fuse access behind panel."

I found a bad fuse, replaced it and it blew immediately too... So I gotta leave it at the dealer IF I can find a way back home
Too bad, I have two week trip through NV, ID, OR, CA, for work. Looks like the Prius and EZ UP awning... AGAIN

[jimh]

john, sense you found a fuse, if it happens again, try removing light bulbs one at a time. i'm thinking that you are going to find a bulb that burnt and shorted.
i have a hard time believing it is a problem in the wiring run. usually look at everything else first.

by the way, we went camping on a lake in e texas last week. when we got ready to leave, my left brake light didn't work on the trailer. for what it is worth, i had running light problems at the same lake (same camp ground) last year. it was one of those squeeze and cut splices...same thing this year different circuit. i might have to find another campground....that's the only place it has happened to me.

[SoCal Solera]

Running lights FIXED... They found water in one of the tail lights, so as it sat it was find but moving it blew the fuse. I had washed it before the trip. (shouldn't leak though)
Knowing have this big trip ahead of me, they got it fixed on time without an appointment !
Thx McMahon's

John

[jimh]

good that it is fixed....aren't electrical problems fun?

[Pedrodasdas]

Hello SoCal,

For a moment I though you had solve my problem. Last night, on my way home, people on the freeway were passing me flashin their lights. I discovered all my back running lights were shut down.

I read your post and found the fuse panel but all the fuses are good. With a voltmeter I was able to find that the power is going out of the fuse panel but not reaching the lights.

I supposed the tow hitch and the tow light connection are from Forest River or installed by the previous owner. Anyway, I do have power at that connector.

What I think is that a wire went loose in the connection (real running lights and trailer running lights) I can see the connection, looks likes a big amount of electrical tape but now, the only way to reach it and work on it is to remove the rear bumper to get to it.

Good thing is that we have a wonderful end of september in Montreal, 23 Celcius (75 Farenheit) at 5h00 PM.

[Freightliner]

Before the last trip we took we noticed we too has no running lights...... Pulled the panel at the sewer/power hookup. Some trouble shooting with a test light revealed power from chassis going to the forest river control panel but nothing coming out. My problem ended up being a bad connection (brown wire) at the input connector of the forest river panel. I pulled the connector (looks similar to a computer Hard disk power connector) and soldered the wires to their crimp connectors and problem was solved....

[Pedrodasdas]

Hello Freightliner,

This is exactly the problem I had but never found the bad connection.
Did you removed the FR panel to find it and you did it in place ?

[Freightliner]

Yes removed the access panel but left the control panel alone. There was a a few connectors on the printed circuit board. The one (4 or 5 pin) all the way to the left had a brown wire that fed the chassis running light power to the FR panel. it was a crimp style connector and was not crimped properly. Not too much space in there so I decided solder it rather then have to replace the crimp connector and re-crimp it. I just reused the old connector and soldered it back to the wire.

Checked the other wires and they seemed OK so I left them alone.

PS- Without this thread I would probably still be looking for that panel.,

[Pedrodasdas]

Here is the panel.

From the chassis is the bottom 5 pins connector. Park in is the one providing the current fur the running lights. I had power on it.

The top connector (unplug) has a brown wire for the Solera running lights, On top on the panel, 3 pins connector, the one indicates running lts had no power coming off of it.

Where exactly was your faulty crimp ?

[Freightliner]

Yes same plug. Same wire..... Now isn't that odd....Wonder how many others will experience this issue...

What year is your unit? Ours is a 2011 on a 2010 chassis. Need to check on exact production date, but she is currently in FL for two weeks.

[Pedrodasdas]

At least they will have those posts to help them out.

Same years for me, 2011 on a 2010. And also stored in Florida until end of February.

[ever4ward]

Great info here. Blew tail/clearance circuit and found panel behind sewer/electrical connections. Was not marked or referenced anywhere so this thread was best means of solving.

[Pedrodasdas]

Very happy if it helped.