Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and oldyellr
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2015
- Messages
- 28
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 0
- Transmission
- Automatic
My son's 1998 Ranger had a trailer hitch ball on the bumper when he bought it recently, but no trailer wiring plug. We discovered it had been cut off and taped up behind the bumper.
I found the cut off cable had 4 wires inside, which we identified as follows:
Green - ground
Dark with white stripe - taillights
Yellow - left flasher
Dark brown - Right flasher
(The "dark" and "dark brown" are guesses due to poor lighting and eyesight, but they couldn't be confused with any of the others anyway.)
The reason I had to identify the wires is that the colors didn't match what I see here: http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/TrailerLights.shtml
Anyway, I connected up the 4-prong flat connector as required above (and in the package the connector came in) and the trailer lights didn't work properly. Hard to describe, but dim instead of bright for signal and stop lights, only one when both were required, etc.
So back to square one, rechecked the connections and then I found the one I had previously identified as ground was no longer ground. Hooking up the trailer hitch, I got better results. Both taillights worked, but the right brake/signal light didn't. Looks like the ground through the hitch helped a bit, but taillight voltage was only 8.5v. (I checked that when checking the trailer lights in case that was the problem.)
Anyway, I have no ground at the end of the harness and no RH bright voltage. I'm suspecting a problem in the rear harness. Any pointers exactly where to look?
I found the cut off cable had 4 wires inside, which we identified as follows:
Green - ground
Dark with white stripe - taillights
Yellow - left flasher
Dark brown - Right flasher
(The "dark" and "dark brown" are guesses due to poor lighting and eyesight, but they couldn't be confused with any of the others anyway.)
The reason I had to identify the wires is that the colors didn't match what I see here: http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/TrailerLights.shtml
Anyway, I connected up the 4-prong flat connector as required above (and in the package the connector came in) and the trailer lights didn't work properly. Hard to describe, but dim instead of bright for signal and stop lights, only one when both were required, etc.
So back to square one, rechecked the connections and then I found the one I had previously identified as ground was no longer ground. Hooking up the trailer hitch, I got better results. Both taillights worked, but the right brake/signal light didn't. Looks like the ground through the hitch helped a bit, but taillight voltage was only 8.5v. (I checked that when checking the trailer lights in case that was the problem.)
Anyway, I have no ground at the end of the harness and no RH bright voltage. I'm suspecting a problem in the rear harness. Any pointers exactly where to look?
