Trailer ground

[rrlund]

Everything has always worked, I just never realized I was grounding through the ball. The quickest way to go is just bolt a wire to the frame up under the gooseneck and another one down under the door by the ball with a plug so I can just plug them together when I latch the hitch. Thanks everybody. You'd think the neutral would be doing the job, but then I don't even pretend to know as much about electricity as a flea knows about calculus.

 

[Dusty MI]

With the 12 volt automotive electric it's + & - no neutral/white. Black & Red + breaks.

 

[zuhnc]

Black & Red + breaks.

I don't want my Black & Red to break, but I do want my Black & Red to BRAKE!

There are wiring color standards, as previously posted, but a lot of individuals use what they got, when wiring trailers. No harm there! zuhnc

 

[Dusty MI]

I don't want my Black & Red to break, but I do want my Black & Red to BRAKE!

There are wiring color standards, as previously posted, but a lot of individuals use what they got, when wiring trailers. No harm there! zuhnc

Thanks, I thought that did't look quite right, my shrinking brain.
Dusty

 

[Jim.ME]

Thanks, I thought that did't look quite right, my shrinking brain.
Dusty

I don't want my Black & Red to break, but I do want my Black & Red to BRAKE!

There are wiring color standards, as previously posted, but a lot of individuals use what they got, when wiring trailers. No harm there! zuhnc

Right, on your own trailer there is no harm in using non-standard colors, if you remember where each color goes next time you have to chase a problem. I would not do that if wiring on a trailer belonging to someone else, best to use the standard colors.

The biggest thing to me is to use the standard locations in the connectors (socket and plug) on both the vehicle and trailer sides. If you don't use those locations, it takes rewiring just to hook your vehicle to a different trailer or a to hook a different vehicle to your trailer, if needed. There are ready made adapters to go from one type of plug to another, however those adapters depend on standard functions landed on the standard locations for the connector.

Everything has always worked, I just never realized I was grounding through the ball. The quickest way to go is just bolt a wire to the frame up under the gooseneck and another one down under the door by the ball with a plug so I can just plug them together when I latch the hitch. Thanks everybody. You'd think the neutral would be doing the job, but then I don't even pretend to know as much about electricity as a flea knows about calculus.

As has been said there is no neutral involved in the 12-volt wiring. Somewhere along the way, white was chosen as the standard color for ground, not neutral, on trailer wiring.

It is your trailer to do with as you choose, however if you have a ground wire in the vehicle side (6 pole socket) connector and one in the trailer side (6 pole plug) connector, which is not carrying the ground to the trailer, that wire circuit has a problem and should be repaired. You should not have to add a separate wire and connector to the truck and a matching one to the trailer.

Edit: from your first post in the thread, it sounds like the ground wire on the trailer side is the problem. Your test light worked to check the truck side when the test light was hooked to the ground in the truck socket, but the trailer lights did not work when it was plugged to the truck, until you used jumper cables to make a ground between the truck and trailer.