dgangler

I have 2001 Tacoma and tried hooking a trailer up to it last night and the lights on the trailer worked for a minute and then I started to drive off and they stopped working. I hooked the trailer up to my buddy's 4Runner and it worked fine. I'm suspecting that I blew a fuse, so I checked both fuse boxes (under the hood and under the dash on the left side) but I don't know what all the abbreviations mean. Does anyone know which fuse goes to the trailer wiring socket?

Beartracker

Are you saying that all your truck lights went too or just on the trailer? Try the headlights, tail lights, break lights and turns on your truck without the trailer hooked up. If they all work then it's not a fuse but you may have a short or bad connection with the wireing harness on your truck.
The fuse abbriviations are not hard to figure out if you really look at it. The reason I don't believe it's a fuse is stop lights, headlights and turns are on seperate fuses . Some are under the dash and some are in the fuse box under the hood, like the headlights. Mike

dgangler

Thanks Beartracker. The lights on my truck still work fine. Only the ones one the trailer don't work. So now I know it's not a fuse. Is there a good way to find out if there's a short and which wire is causing the problem, or if it's the wire harness?

Beartracker

If it were me I would see if your getting any contact at all using a probe tester. Just turn on your head lights and stick the probe in each socket of the harness until one of them causes your prob light (tester) to come on. That means you should have running lights to the harness. If you have no lights then I would check all the wiring splices to the harness and make sure none are loose or broken.
If your Friends works on the trailer and you have all your lights working on the truck then I would just get a new harness and rewire it. It will come with instructions.Before doing that I have a feeling that you will find a loose wire at the splice . Take the tape off of each splice and check it good for corrosion, good contact or a broken wire. It may just be something simple like that.

dgangler

Thanks for your help. It was the wire harness. There was some corrosion on there. I clean it up and it works now, but I think I'll replace it anyway.