5 Pin connector with 6 wires

[specialk]

I broke the blue wire male connector off trying to get it apart off of the trailer harness. So, I went and bought a 5 pin trailer harness ( my trailer is a 2008 Dorsey). I cut off the old broken trailer harness and go to wire in the new.


Problem, is that there are 6 wires for the 5 pins. White, Green, Red, Yellow, Blue and 2 browns. The browns come off of the yellow and green. On the old harness the brown wires came from the same male pin connector the best I can tell because the actual connection is in the plastic resin harness, but it cam from the same hole directly in line with the same male connector. So I simply thought, If I wire the two brown wires together and wire it to the new single brown wire it would work.

It didn't. When I turn the lights on the outer ring of LED light up normally, but the brake lights/turn lights on the right do not work.

I unwired them and directly wire only the right brown wire in, with the same results. I wired it with only the left brown wire and the right lights did not come on at all. I connected the right brown wire to the white ground, again no lights at all.


Summarize. Old harness has 5 pins and 6 wires with two brown wires from the same pin. New 5 pin harness has 5 wires with only one brown. And combining the browns together, does not allow the right turn signal/brake lights to work.

Cant seem to get ahold of Dorsey, the 6 times I have called over the last 2 weeks.

Google not a help either, just shows a 5 pin with 5 wires, no help from the Dorsey manual. No wiring diagrams.

Let me know what I need to do.

Thanks, as always.

[boatwakes]

Did those lights for sure work before? To test if you have a trailer light issue or a harness issue or a truck connection issue, start with wiring the yellow and green independently directly to the positive of a 12volt battery and the white directly to that battery's negative and see if they light up. If they don't, check for voltage at the light connection, check the ground to the light and so on. You are correct that both browns go to the same connection point on the harness, but they should never connect to the white/ground. The yellow and green are for stopping and turn so check individually and let us know what you come up with. Good luck.

[specialk]

I placed the green on the positive and the white on the negative and the brake lights work.

The truck wiring harness is only 1 year old and worked perfectly until the day I cut the wiring harness off. Or at least I am 99.5 percent sure. Since I am the one who always load the boat, I think I would notice the brake light out, but....


What is the next step. How would I test the harness and if it does work, also do you recommend me trying to solder the two browns together to get a better connection.

Thanks for you advice.

[jwanck11]

Can you take a picture and post? I just re-wired the entire trailer and might be able to help you.

I believe the brown wire is a neutral that runs down both sides of the trailer.

A picture will help a lot!

To test the truck, there are testers that you can buy or you can take it to a dealer and ask them to put a tester on it - that is what I did and they did it for free.

[jmhatchett]

I Have done all of this on my truck and trailer, ALL colors match accordingly. The Blue is for the reverse (reverse lights and also to bypass the brakes when the truck is put in reverse), the Green and Yellow are the Brake/Turn signal lights, one for each side. I cannot recall which goes to each side. The brown are for all running lights, one wire will go for each side of the trailer again, so two trailer wires should connect with one wire to connect to the truck. The White is the ground.
So all wires should splice with their same color and work correctly.

Also check all of the FUSES in the truck... as always this is the last thing I checked and it turned out that was the only problem was a blown fuse.

[specialk]

Here is the picture. I have a harness on my truck as well as my wife's SUV. Tried both, both with the same results

Browns are wired together, tight and woven.

Still, lights only on the left, no brake/turn on the right.

When I direct connect the green and the white to the battery as described above, I get the brake/turn lights on.

What am I missing, besides the portion of brain that knows something about electricity.

[specialk]

Only diff I see is I got, white to white, 2 brown to one brown, yellow to yellow, green to green and RED to BLUE. But that is the only wire left.



Maybe the problem arises in the color descrepency.

[specialk]

Crawled under to see what color goes to the lights. I see a red and white wire that goes to the lights and a dark brown/black wire as well.

I was suprised to see the same wiring on the left as well as the right.

I did not see a yellow or green wire.



The more I think it is just an color pattern discrepency, though I don't know which color pattern is correct.

[jwanck11]

White/White = ground
Blue/Red = reverse
Green = right turn / brake
Yellow = left turn / brake
brown = common (running lights on when lights in tow vehicle lights are on)

The brake/turn action is controlled by the green and yellow wires.
The running lights are controlled by the brown.

The wiring on the running/brake/turn lights on the trailer will be the same - There is a red, black and white wire.

Red = turn/brake and is connected to either the green or yellow wire coming from the harness
black = connected to the brown wire
white = ground

Here is a schematic:
http://www.trailerpartsdepot.com/ite...=48265&eq=&Tp=

Check all of your connections at the lights (especially the running lights) If there is a faulty ground somewhere, it can cause all kinds of lighting issues.

You might also try soldering the connections and shrink wrapping them.

[jwanck11]

Are the running lights all working - on the tail lights as well? If so, there is something wrong in the connection of the green and yellow wires...

[kbunch]

Just a thought but you could use a test light with someone in the truck to match wire colors off your harness to the proper function and use a battary on the trailer to sort them out on that end. Good luck!

[boatwakes]

At this point, if you haven't fixed it yet, you need to get a multi-meter and test the connector. Set the multi-meter to DC current, have someone inside the truck hold the brake pedal down. Now connect the black from the multi-meter to the white on the harness and then the red on the multi-meter to the yellow. Check the voltage (>12volts normal.), next hold the red from the mm to the green and it should show the same. Use the turn signals with foot off the brake and you should see voltage on and off with the pulse. Let us know.

[specialk]

Thanks for all of the adivice, just came back from the trip so for the next few weeks it will be stored at the local lake. I will get a volt and amp meter and restart the process in about 2 weeks.


I definitely appreciate all of the input.