Category Archives: trailer lights

Waiting to Launch

For the first time, I’ve had our Airstream at an RV dealer for repairs and maintenance — in the past I’ve done it myself.  However, with cold temperatures, the prospect of repacking wheel bearings lost any appeal it might have had and I also knew that I needed to get the unit inspected.  So I dropped it off at a local outfit, Mekkleson RV in East Montpelier, VT who service a handful of Airstreams out of the many hundreds of RV’s they handle each year.

To make a long story short, they did a fine job.  They found problems in the electrical system which they fixed through better grounding and work on the plugin — and more importantly, found that one set of brakes was not working.  An electrical line had parted, probably in the awful trip up our driveway last March, so they got those working and a fresh new inspection sticker in place.  We are ready to go.

A full moon sets over the snowy/frosty Airstream as the winter sun rises behind us.

We’ve got a month to go before departure and we are starting to gather gear and think through our trip options.  I’m thinking of hauling both or one of the kayaks this time since we are so often near water.  Given the need for a dog-sitter, it’s unlikely that both of us would paddle together so I think we’ll end up taking Mary’s boat, which I can cram into and take both sets of paddles.

It’s not too early for me to start worrying a bit about the first couple of days of travel — getting below the snow zone.  I just sent Mary a picture of our final day last year during our return, and I can hear the groans from the other room.  We need less excitement this trip.

Ready, Set, Wait Another Day

As is the case before most major trips, we were up very early this morning. I had plowed the driveway yesterday (we got nearly a foot of new snow), and cleaned off the trailer. I had a lot of trouble getting it into place and whacked a piece of ledge submerged in the new snow. Finally, we spent all evening finishing loading.

We were ready to launch at 6:15 A.M. In a last minute check, we found that the trailer lights didn’t work. Shades of day one last year — except it wasn’t along I-81! I realized that in the struggles to extricate the trailer and get it moved into the driveway, I had trashed the electrical connector to the truck. It was at first depressing, especially since it was dark, snowy, and windy. Then the truck lights were wacky — brake lights staying on, turn signals inoperative. That improved once I disconnected the broken connector.

I was able to back the trailer on to flat land in front of the garage and get unhitched. First, I tried to tape the broken connector up with electrical tape — in 15 degree temperatures and wind with Mary holding the flashlight. No way, Jose.

So after thawing out, I went downtown and bought hand warmers first (enough frostbite the last few days) and then a new plug and some truck fuses. The next several hours was spent wrestling with 7 frayed leads and set screws — plugged it in and…. nothing. I dug out the Ford manual, studied the fuse layout, and replaced a 20 amp fuse. Running lights! The right turn signal worked, left not. Aha, the fuse — I replaced it, tried again — nothing (but a blown fuse.) I knew I would have to take the plug apart again so I went to to warm up and have coffee. I wrestled the plug apart, got the left turn wire reconnected and carefully put it together. Tried it .. nothing. Oh yeah, the truck fuse was blown again. I took the cover plates off, found the fuse .. which was again blown, and replaced it. Finally, after about four hours plus, things were working.

By now, it was approaching mid-day and I had not been impressed with the road conditions during my earlier trip. We were tired, stressed out by the hassle, and decided to wait until tomorrow morning. The forecast is better, we’ll double-check everything once more tonight – and should be good to go. Now I’ve got to haul in some more snow-covered firewood and take Penny for a long walk. She’s been “clingy”, knowing something is up but not completely sure she’s going. She’ll go if we go — and tomorrow the internet/cable gets disconnected so we’ll be out of here.

I guess I’m glad that all my learning last year on systems and replacing stuff helped. However, doing electrical work in biting wind is above my pay grade. We need to get the Airstream, and ourselves, south pronto.

Trailer light gremlins

Our ongoing saga of blown fuses and battery draining continues. My brother Barry and his spouse Mica hooked up with us at Goose Island the other day before they headed west (we have decided to hang around this area for now rather than heading to Big Bend.) Barry is an Airstream whiz, having renovated two old trailers from scratch and working on all the electrical, plumbing, and gas systems. He brought his tools and we spent the afternoon poking, testing, and drawing blanks for solutions.

The trailer running lights come on for about five seconds and then go off when the trailer is hooked up to the truck. We have power from the truck for the lights and traced the line into the trailer into some sort of relay/splitter under the couch. Barry is slim and crawled under the couch with his test light and found that the line going out of the splitter seemed dead. We sort of gave up, buttoned up, and had a nice dinner together. Here’s his followup guidance to me:

Just a recap, the green wire into the trailer stays hot to a small box of 4 wires, green out, black, and red. Black wire on box is ground. Red wire is hot, don’t know what it is. Green wire out may go to a junction of wires to various running lights. If you can find that junction unhook all wires and start hooking up one at a time to see if you can find the problem. Good luck.

So, for now we don’t drive at night. All other lights are working. And the project of sorting out the malfunctions continue. Fortunately, the days are getting longer.