Ok, so after the inaugural trip, there were indeed a few things still in need of attention. One of them was the electric brakes, which just weren’t hooked up properly (or at all). This was at least manageable on a short trip, and were, what I thought, an easy repair. Another was replacement of the 7-pin wiring harness, which over the years had been let to drag on the road enough times that bare copper was visible. It wasn’t me…. honestly. What remained was encountered along the way, and will probably be the meat of this post.

The first attacked was the 7-pin, which I was putting off because it meant opening up a big can of worms. To get to the tin on the front of the trailer, the “rock protection” (mouldy carpet and plywood) and edge trim with putty under it had to come off first.

Then you were at the tin, which was screwed and stapled on. All the staples were removed with a tack-puller, and then the tin could be folded up to expose what was beneath.

I’ve got the insulation tucked up out of the way, but this is when discovery began, and things started to make sense. The best way to describe the hookup situation prior to this was “inconsistent”. At best I had signals with dim brake lights, at worst I had nothing, and no amount of testing had proven anything conclusive other than there was a Gremlin in the mix.

So, before moving forward, you need to know that you can right click
(or tap and hold) on any picture and select “open in new tab” to see a full image. OK, carry on…

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That fried wire – an obvious short – melted the adjacent wires creating a bridge between them, which in turn caused all kinds of illogical results during testing. Quite lucky this unit hadn’t burnt to the ground, and knowing what I was looking at was only a result, I was then compelled to dig deeper in search of the cause. YAY!

Before that, I began installation of the new 7-pin. Why they would not make an access panel on the inside of the trailer for this is beyond me, but I guess they didn’t build it to fail. Here you see the temporary setup and a loop of new wire spliced in.

I spent quite a bit of time at this point making sure I had it all right, re-testing connectivity and function at both the truck connection and brake controller, and gladly was able to confirm that all was well and good. It remains that way so far (aside from activating when the hazards are on), and this was really fun! Y’know, kissing the glass as you try to get off the road in heavy traffic when there is an issue other than locking up trailer brakes (this ended up being a small adjustment after the fact). More later on that later.

I had to invent little things along the way, and wrestle with hard to access nuts, but the most difficult was working between the axles to solder up the connections. With the trailer up on jacks and the wheels removed, it was all simple, but for the doing of it, so having Cass on hand to pass stuff was a God-send.

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With that out of the way, I couldn’t put it off any longer, and so started opening up the back. Some damage done backing up in the past had resulted in a bend in the tin preventing it from ‘tucking’ under as it should, thus actually funnelling water into the unit over time. The rot was evident prior to beginning, so it was another ‘must’.

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First the trim, then the staples, then the frames, and the back was exposed. This served to flesh out the wiring some, but ended in more mystery as well.

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The further I get into this thing, the more apparent it becomes they were built from the outside in. The culprit in the big picture above (right click open in new tab) is the line which runs up and feeds the front running lights. Up there, somewhere, is the short which caused all the ‘melty’.

At this point three sides of tin had come off and the ultimate cause (and cure) of the short was still out of reach, the garage was getting full with parts strewn about, there was rain in the forecast (again), and to carry on meant an even bigger commit than I was already into.

It’s not like me to come so far only to turn around, but to barge ahead seemed fraught with perils, and a decision was made to forego what I was after in favour of what I already had.

What I had was turn signals, brake lights, and a way to isolate the short to at least have rear running lights, and that seemed like a good enough deal to me. In the absence of a Quonset out of the elements, or a more suitable place to dig into it further, I opted to begin reconstruction from here.

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Reassembly began with the tin on the side, which was simply nailed into place with some skinny nails I’d picked up over the years. Finding the same holes left by the staples to use as guides allowed for exact replacement of the tin, and everything went back together fairly well. The thin nails will pull out again if/when needed, and from there we went to the back.

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The rot was repaired with some left over cedar I’ve had laying around for some time. It isn’t prone to rotting, and the structure was made sound again. The lights were properly soldered, dielectric grease used where it was needed, and the tin was bent back into shape so it would sit properly in the groove above and shed water as intended.

By the time I got to buttoning up the front, taking pictures was getting old, and we were being chased by the weather again.

I cut a hole for access to the wiring from the inside, repaired wood rot in the same manner, and buttoned it up with the small nails.

Reinstalling the trim was a lesson or two in putty tape, but overall, the results were far better than what was removed. These were simply screwed back into place, the squeeze-out cut off, and used to fill the occasional void. Lots of worry there for nothing, I guess. Trepidation is OK, so long as it doesn’t freeze you from movement.

A new sheet of underlay was cut to mount the carpet (rock guard) on the front, and we re-used the old carpet only after purchasing two different rugs and subsequently returning them. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Some time in the future we may encounter a piece of Astro-turf suitable for this, but until then 1 gajillion staples will suffice to hold the old stuff in place once again.

With the wiring finally uncovered enough to decipher it, I had gotten the 12 volt circuit working again, as hooking the battery up had never worked properly in the past, and it was no wonder given the mass of confusion found under the tin. The old battery box had gone brittle in the sun though, so it was replaced along with a deep cycle battery. A pretty penny was spent there.

Other treats were grooves cut into the propane tank tops so the hold down wasn’t on it’s last thread all the time.

That was about it, and once ready to roll, guess what should appear?

Whatever.

They’d been working their way up the alley all week, milking it a few hours a day. I didn’t care… get it done, spend all day. My back alley has been an insult to my property taxes for about a decade now, so I’m not going to stop someone from setting up their dairy farm on my street. Got nuts!

It was a day before we were supposed to head out to our friends at an undisclosed location anyways.