Trailer brake light

This site contains affiliate links for which LandyZone may be compensated if you make a purchase.
GreenLove

GreenLove

New Member
Posts
430
Location
Carmarthenshire, South Wales
The brake lights on my Landy work fine, but my trailer brake lights don't light at all (the tail lights on the trailer are OK though). The trailer and spare trailer board I'm using for testing work perfectly, so I reckon the problem must be between the trailer socket on the cross member and the feed from the nearside/offside brake light.

Is it the Landy's nearside or the offside that feeds the trailer brake lights and which colour wire coming from the Landy brake light would be the feed to the trailer brake light please?
 
Offside. locate the wire going into the Offside brake light, trace it back under the metal cover and you'll find a twin/triple bullet connector. trailer brake light shud run off that..
 
My experience of trailers is its nearly always the socket or plug, it doesn't take much moisture to send the wires green and cut the contact

Have you checked the plug and socket
 
redhand said:
Offside. locate the wire going into the Offside brake light, trace it back under the metal cover and you'll find a twin/triple bullet connector. trailer brake light shud run off that..
Click to expand...

Tracing at the moment, but the route is confusing as all wires coming from the offside brake light appear to go back through the hole in the wheel arch to god knows where (probably the nearside).

Do you happen to know if it's the red, green or black wire coming from the offside brake light that is supposed to connect to the red trailer wire (for the brake light)?
 
wack61 said:
My experience of trailers is its nearly always the socket or plug, it doesn't take much moisture to send the wires green and cut the contact

Have you checked the plug and socket
Click to expand...

Yup. Checked the socket by checking all connections with the socket open and multimeter testing resistance from the socket to where it all connects to the Landy electrics in the rear offside compartment.

There isn't any power to the brake trailer wire (red) in the rear offside compartment, so I was thinking that because the Landy brake lights are working it must be a break in the circuit between the offside brake light and the red trailer wire. I was testing for volts on the multimeter, which I presume is the correct thing to do?
 
Last edited:
GreenLove said:
Tracing at the moment, but the route is confusing as all wires coming from the offside brake light appear to go back through the hole in the wheel arch to god knows where (probably the nearside).

Do you happen to know if it's the red, green or black wire coming from the offside brake light that is supposed to connect to the red trailer wire (for the brake light)?
Click to expand...

Black is earth so forget that one.
Then simply look under landy to see what colour the wire leading to the brake lamp, is.
 
redhand said:
Then simply look under landy to see what colour the wire leading to the brake lamp, is.
Click to expand...

On my Landy the brake lamp is above the indicator, so the back of it can be seen from inside the rear door above the wheel arch.

Perhaps if I understood what the purpose of the three wires going into the back of the lamp did. The black is earth. Am I right in saying the green is the tail light and the red is the brake light, and the trailer brake light is powered from a split in the lamp's red wire before it goes into the back of the lamp?

Here's my crude diagram of confusion:

rear_light.jpg
 
Yes. There is a bundle of bullet connectors, on the rear offside behind the metal cover above the seat box/wheel arch. Use ya tester to find out which one goes live when the lights are on logic dicates that the other one will be the brake light feed :Doh: then trace that back to the spagetti junction under the cover..
 
Results are in: green wire feeds the brake light. Green on offside, green/purple on nearside.

So, there should be a split in the offside green wire before it enters the lamp to feed the red brake wire for the trailer socket. Problem is, I've traced the offside green wire and it just goes straight into the chassis rail without any split.

Now I'm stumped :wtf:
 
GreenLove said:
Results are in: green wire feeds the brake light. Green on offside, green/purple on nearside.

So, there should be a split in the offside green wire before it enters the lamp to feed the red brake wire for the trailer socket. Problem is, I've traced the offside green wire and it just goes straight into the chassis rail without any split.

Now I'm stumped :wtf:
Click to expand...

Have you removed the cover inside the rear door??
 
I have a theory: the trailer brake light circuit is pretty much independent from the Landy brake lights.

Here's why:

The red wire from the trailer socket threads up into the rear offside area (behind the cover) then connects to two green wires. These two green wires then go down into the chassis, along the rail, up into the engine compartment, and then connect to the top of the brake box (I think that's what it is) where there appears to be some sort of sensor/switch with two shielded spade inputs.

One input has the two green wires for the trailer brake lights (as just mentioned), and the other input is connected to the wire for the Landy brake light.

Now, over the past few days my parking light on the dash has been flickering intermittently whilst on the move. So perhaps it's a dodgy brake sensor/switch and the wiring is actually fine?

What do you think of this mad idea?

Actually, a picture is better than...

defender_brake.jpg
 
Last edited:
GreenLove said:
I have a theory: the trailer brake light circuit is pretty much independent from the Landy brake lights.

Here's why:

The red wire from the trailer socket threads up into the rear offside area (behind the cover) then connects to two green wires. These two green wires then go down into the chassis, along the rail, up into the engine compartment, and then connect to the top of the brake box (I think that's what it is) where there appears to be some sort of sensor/switch with two shielded spade inputs.

One input has the two green wires for the trailer brake lights (as just mentioned), and the other input is connected to the wire for the Landy brake light.

Now, over the past few days my parking light on the dash has been flickering intermittently whilst on the move. So perhaps it's a dodgy brake sensor/switch and the wiring is actually fine?

What do you think of this mad idea?

Actually, a picture is better than...

defender_brake.jpg
Click to expand...

Actually, I've just removed what I think is the brake switch, tested it with a multimeter, and think it's ok. Also, when pressed it just connects the circuit, so it seems it may be a wiring problem after all. Damn, thought I was onto something there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

V
2007 tdc Trailer light socket brake light problems
Replies
5
Views
684
vtwin
V
T
Hazard/Trailer light
Replies
6
Views
472
miktdish
miktdish
J
LED lights
Replies
9
Views
548
miktdish
miktdish
robbie the greatl
trailer light socket
Replies
8
Views
746
robbie the greatl
robbie the greatl
O
Brake warning dash light on
Replies
7
Views
330
Obi_110
O
Back
Top