Please help - electrics blues!!

[karuhi]

Hello everyone, I'm hoping someone out there can help with the below problem.
I have a yr 2000 V8 petrol Japanese import 100 series cruiser - love it... mostly!
About a month ago i picked up a trailer from a mate to find its lights and wiring were shot. I replaced the block on the cruiser first as mine was broken, pretty sure i wired it right... but i do remember wondering about two wires. That didn't fix anything on the trailer so i took it to an auto electrician and they fixed it. From there i drove 3 hrs south, loaded up timber and went to drive home - no dash cluster lights - nothing. Stopped the truck and when i went to restart it wouldn't go. Had a look in the fuse boxes and found nothing. Got the phone out and googled the problem to find there was another fuse box in the front passenger foot well. Found the offending 15amp spade fuse and replaced. Needed a jump start and off i went, all good. The other day i was towing a trailer and found the R for reverse light glowing more or less as i pushed the brakes - but everything else worked fine. Then my wife on the weekend was towing the trailer and it started loosing power and stopped - gridlocking the one way road system for half an hour. The Repco (car parts retail store) man came along and checked the battery to tell her it was dead and so was the alternator, put a new battery in and limped to her sisters place (who's husband is an agricultural diesel mechanic) He pulled the alternator out put in new brushes and replaced the regulator as it was burnt out, replaced the same 15amp fuse in the passengers footwell - started it up, and still no dash lights and no juice coming through the alternator.
PLEASE PLEASE does anyone have any ideas.
cheers -Justin.

 

[ihadmail]

Are your issues only while a trailer is hooked up? The trailer wiring isolator, located behind the left hand outer tail light, is notorious for going bad and causing all kinds of electrical issues when a trailer is connected.

 

[karuhi]

We have only had "issues" twice, both times while towing - yes, but at the moment there is no trailer on the truck, fuse replaced and there is still no dash cluster and the alternator is not working.

 

[Sandroad]

Just guessing here, because my '04 may be different, but there are 2 fuses related to towing that could be pulled to isolate the converter (trailer wiring) from the rest of the truck to see if that helps. Also, if the alternator never worked after new brushes, I wonder if that repair was done correctly? I'm still concerned too about that first repair of your "mystery" wires as well as the new wiring work on the trailer. All said, it's not coincidence the problems started with that first LC wiring and trailer wiring. So, remove trailer related fuses, get the alternator working, replace the towing converter, make sure the trailer wiring is correct, and hope for best.