Brake Lights & Turn Lights gone south

[Brakedl]

I have a colman santa fe pulled by a jeep cherokee.  I have not had any e- trouble until this year.  The running lights on the PU work fine however, the brake lights will not light up nor will the left and right turn lights.  The bulbs are good (double bulbs with running lights).  And the jeep's brake and turn lights are just fine as well.  The only thing that is different form last year is the fact that the automatic return for the turn signal on the steering column is not working anymore.  (I have to manually turn off the turn signal now--just like the old days.  I am sure that has nothing to do with the problem though...)  Someone please help

D.B.

[mike4947]

The vast majority of running light problems can be traced to the TV's connector. It sits there 24/7/365 without maintenace and corrodes. Radio Shack makes an excellent contact cleaner that disolves corrosion and stock small tubes of dielectric grease to help prevent new corrosion between maintenace cycles.
Of course you might have enough corrosion to actually seperate the wires. Again taking it apart will tell you what you need to do.

[CAPEd CODger]

Does your Jeep have amber turn signals? If it does, you probably have some sort of "taillight converter" installed. I had to put one on my Aerostar.
Perhaps that's where your problem lies.
Of course, Mike's idea is good, too. I always keep a can of WD-40 handy, and spray it into the trailer plug and socket before every trip. Helps to keep the clean connections clean.

Good luck

Bob

[Brakedl]

Does your Jeep have amber turn signals? If it does, you probably have some sort of "taillight converter" installed. I had to put one on my Aerostar.
Perhaps that's where your problem lies.
Of course, Mike's idea is good, too. I always keep a can of WD-40 handy, and spray it into the trailer plug and socket before every trip. Helps to keep the clean connections clean.

Good luck

+++I have amber lights--and I should say that the tow package was factory installed

Dave

[CAPEd CODger]

Get under the rear end of the Jeep and follow the wires back from the socket and see where they go. Check at the socket for corrosion and broken wires.
If they installed a converter for the lights, you should find it somewhere when you trace back the wires.
My money is on the taillight converter being defective.
You could have an open fuse feeding the circuit. If there is one. Check your owners manual and find out.


Again, good luck.

Bob

[garym053]

My former Jeep suffered from this problem. It's easy enough to check. Turn on the key, turn on the turn signals, and measure the voltage at the TV plug with a multimeter. It SHOULD pulse up to >10 Volts and drop back towards zero with each flash. IF it doesn't, or it reads LOW voltage, then my money is on the converter!
(The voltage on my multimeter doesn't reach 12v or 0v on any given pulse, probably because of the lag in reading it in the digital multimeter.)
I had one converter fail and the multimeter would pulse up to about 6 or 8v, not enough to light the lamp, and one failed totally!