Divine Ground Wire On Trailer

The best way to secure a ground to a trailer or any metal surface is to do exactly what you described.

Ground wire on trailer. How do you run a ground wire from trailer lights neil the basic idea for this so called ground is to provide a return path for the electricity electrons to come back to the tow vehicle to complete the circuit. Having the ground wire connect to metal that is corroded or covered with excessive undercoating will prevent a proper metal to metal connection. We have our ground wire right here as you can see it is loose in the air so it is not going to do you any good.

Make sure the surface is clean and free of any solvents grease or dirt and securely fasten the ring terminal with a sheet metal screw. Also it must connect with things if included that use the aux power and back up lights too. Next move on the the connector on the trailer itself.

We have wires disconnected so lets go out back and show you what is going to happen when you have no ground wire attached to the trailer 1 54. Make sure this connection is secure and not corroded. The white wire is the ground or negative wire connecting to the vehicle battery minus side.

Follow the ground wire and locate the point where it attaches to the trailer frame which is usually on the trailer tongue. On trailers it goes to the frame and from the trailer it has to go through the ground on the truck. In that case using a jumper to join the moving to the stationary part of the trailer.

This is the simplest way and the cheapest that s why most trailers i know come this way but also prone to having a lot of problems due to the poor conductivity at the. If the trailer in question has a tilting tongue or a tilt bed sometimes the pivot point between the moving and stationary portion of the trailer becomes worn leading to a poor ground connection. The trailer wiring diagram shows this wire going to all the lights and brakes.

And if there is any interruption it is going to cause the trailer lights not to work at all or do some weird stuff. Then drill a hole in the surface you want to attach the ground to.