Log 2014060601

Last year, I did an adequate job wiring my 1195 Lb. Capacity Heavy Duty Folding Utility Trailer that I purchased from Harbor Freight Tools.  But I left it's wires drooping in anticipation that I was going to fold it someday.  Well, when I placed it in storage, while folding it, I taunt and stretched the wires.  With all of the wire shorting problems that I've had between the trailer and car, I don't dare trust them again.  So, the trailer needs to be rewired.
But I got to thinking this evening that there's no way to do this right when folding without having some kind of separation.  Last year, I probably played around with using some kind of bullets.  But as I understand, those are usually designed for wires typically used in model aircraft and small RC cars.  I never found one that could interface to a 6 gauge battery cable so that my marine battery on the trailer could charge on the trailer while it's in motion.

So, what purchased today from Walmart in Mentor of Lake County are 5 - trailer extension wiring that have both a male and female ends for a 4 flat connection.  I intend to use the first two at the midsection and the others at the trailer's taillights. That will give me the separation that I need.  And the midsection connections should be rugged enough to stay connected and not accidentally ground to the frame.

Since my floor is wood, I also purchased some mounting brackets that one would use in a house to pin coaxial cable to a base board.  I plan on tacking that up under the trailer to hold my wires so that they don't sag.  The connectors at the taillights are there for diagnostic and by-pass purposes.  If I'm down trail, I may not be readily able to diagnose, by-pass, or re-wire the main lines.  With these new connectors, I can run a temporary by-pass on top of the floor and have full running lights in the meantime.

On a seperate note... I applied this year's sticker on the trailer's license plate today.  The temporary by-pass lighting was mounted to the rear rails.  But I discovered that the left turn signal wasn't working.  I tested them two days ago and found that both worked.  Therefore, there is a short in the car at the location where the hitch wiring was installed.

Leaving the Storage B, there wasn't any issues with the trailer linking up to the car or while driving.  While at the gas station, they didn't have any alkaline AAA batteries, so I reluctantly purchased some lithium ion's instead.  With the main taillights out, they were for a headlamp that I wrapped around one of the taillights that serves as the license plate light as well.  The headlamp is for people who go in caves, or hikers.  But it has an elastic band that I mounted to the taillight so it would illuminate the license plate.

Log 2013120401

As you can see, these logs are also used as maintenance records.  Normally, it takes a website 3 - 9 months to be cataloged by something like Google to come up in a search result.  Because this log is on Blogger, and it's a part of Google, my log entries tend to get indexed by their search engine much faster.  So, I'm careful to mention my car's year, make, model, edition and mileage.  Also, my blog entries can be searched from my user interface.  I can use that to determine if I performed a certain repair before?  If there's any "tricks" to making the repair easier?  Or, I might be able to determine if there's pattern of some kind?  Or, I can use it to estimate when a part that I worked on before will go bad (such as the brakes, which were fully replaced recently noted as per the log)?  In this case, when down trail for extended periods of time, it would be advantageous to anticipate its replacement.

The #'s 22 & 69 and spare 10amp fuses on my 2008 Chevy HHR LS were replaced at 130,073 miles on the odometer in Cleveland Heights of Cuyahoga County.  The #69 is a 10amp fuse for the air conditioner.  There's nothing wrong with that system at the moment.  It's just that I ended up needing it because I was out of spare 10amp fuses and it was expendable this time of year.

The #22 slot is for the rear parking lights.  I transferred #69's fuse into the #22 slot while the trailer was hitched and it blew that as soon as I it a load (power).  There is no doubt anymore that the trailer's wiring has a short that is causing a power surge greater than 10amp to try and get through the fuse box.

This isn't the first time that the trailer has had a short that blew the #22 fuse.  At one time, I believe that it blew one of the rear taillight bulb filaments.  Because I have one package of 2 bulbs with one of the missing, and then another full pack in addition.  I think that I used that one bulb because one of my turn signal filaments was burnt out. 

The trailer's electrical seems to work on a series circuit. 

The brake lights and turn signals have been unaffected.  Since the parking lamps only come on with the headlights and hi-beams (but not the daytime running lights), they're irrelevant during the day. So, I've been using it to haul items to the dump and transport plywood.

Well, the trailer will need a couple hours for me to wire it correctly.  And I'd rather do that at my storage unit under daylight where the drive is paved and is easier on the caster wheels to sit on and roll into storage.  Because I think that the problem with the trailer's wiring was that the unit was folded into it's storage mode where the back part of the deck is unbolted and folded onto the front.  Then unit is tilted up from its main to the caster wheels and rolled into storage vertically.  When the trailer was assembled, it was never wired while the unit was in storage mode.  The wiring came after and I never bothered to check it in that configuration.

Well, when I folded the trailer into storage mode last month, the wiring was a bit tight.  And it's very possible that I may have stretched and broken the insulation shielding somewhere along the frame.  Regardless, the wiring needs to be re-routed through custom drilled holes anyways and get clamped to the frame in a way that accommodates its storage mode.