Trailer Tail Light Converter Wiring? (1 Viewer)

[JTU]

I have been fighting the issue of trailer light with my 60 for hours. I'm not an electrical wiz but I know it shouldn't be this hard. Trying to get my 60 trailer towing ready for a trip I leave on Monday. I have searched and searched the forums and I can not find the definitive answer of which wires I need to tap into. I believe the PO did not tap into the correct wires.

Do I need a 3 to 2 wire converter or a 5 to 4 wire converter?

When I plug the trailer into the vehicle all I get it running lights, no brake lights and no blinkers. I have confirmed that the trailer works correctly on 2 other vehicles

It had a U-haul converter installed in it to begin with, but I thought that it may have went bad so I went shopping for a new one:

The only converter I could find in town was this universal Hopkins converter, I cut the uhaul converter out and replaced with the new one with the same wiring orientation:

The new Hopkins converter gave me the exact same results, running light but no brake or turns.

 

[g-man]

Thats the right one. 5 to 4 wire. Prob not the converter. So you have a 12v test light and are getting current before the converter but not after? Testing the plug right ..not plugging it to the trailer?

 

[JTU]

So I have brake lights and tail lights now but no turn signals.

Tail light converter wiring color code:
White - ground
Brown - tail light
Yellow - left turn
Red - brake light
Green right turn


Currently I have:

Wired to left tail light:
(Converter side : vehicle side)
-Brown (TL) : red w/ green stripe
-Red (brake) : green w/ white stripe
-yellow (LT) : green w/ yellow stripe

Wire to right tail light:
-green (RT) : green w/ white stripe

I reversed the wires for the running and brake lights and gained turned signals but lost brake lights. Swapped them back and got brake lights and tail lights and lost turn signals. There doesn’t seem to be another way to wire the turn signals as there is only one wire coming from them.

 

[JTU]

At the plug it seems to be receiving a signal for the turn signals, the plug indicator lights show power to the turn signals with the blinkers/flashers going. But the trailer lights aren’t getting power. Once again I just hooked the trailer to another vehicle and all works good on the trailer end.

 

[BMValentine]

Would the fact that the 60 series switches the ground side of the circuit instead of the power side of the circuit cause any issues?

 

[JTU]

@BMValentine I have no clue. I wouldn’t think so though?

 

[BMValentine]

are the trailer lights LED? I wouldn't think it would affect it either.

 

[tmxmotorsports]

I haven't installed one on a 60 and dont have one on my 62 the last one i installed was on a Mitsubishi box van the converter that was needes for it to work everything properly was one that you need to run a power wire to the battery.

 

[tmxmotorsports]

Its the one for foreign vehicles

 

[BMValentine]

I haven't installed one on a 60 and dont have one on my 62 the last one i installed was on a Mitsubishi box van the converter that was needes for it to work everything properly was one that you need to run a power wire to the battery.

If that's the case then the converter is running off of a relay and needs constant power and relies on the brake/turn signal lights to trigger your trailer lights

 

[IslandJ]

I hope this helps some. I used this harness, Curt Powered Tail Light Converter with 4-Pole Flat Trailer Connector Curt Wiring C59236
I wired it based off previous posts I found but either we F'd something up or the previous harness had made a short. I don't know because I'm clueless when it comes to electrical, slowly learning. After blowing fuse after fuse I called my neighbor up and we took the harness and ended up splicing into the passenger side wires, still through the driver side cargo area. The harness has a constant power from the battery with a supplied relay, and grounded to the body. Yeah I know these blue snap splices suck, Its on my list to solder things in properly.

 

[BMValentine]

Double check your grounds, if you can find a place to ground it to frame that is best but if not it is fine to ground to body. Make sure you get some sand paper and clean up those ground points. Ground to bare metal and then spray it with some paint to stop rust. I bet it is due to a bad ground.

 

[BMValentine]

I would even double check all the factory grounds and just hit them up with a wire brush.

 

[TallCityCruzer]

I used this Curt 59236 converter and soldered to the following wires:
Right turn = Green/yellow wire
Left Turn = Green/black wire
Brakes = Green/white wire
Tail lights when headlights are on = red/green wire
Ran separate power directly to battery with supplied wire and inline fuse for the converter.

I soldered the signal wires from the converter to the female connectors but had to remove them from the plastic plug with a small flat blade screwdriver. Then reinserted after soldering as shown. I also installed a 4 to 7 way adapter to allow for my electronic brake controller. Been working great with zero issues.

 

[TallCityCruzer]

I enclosed all the wiring in a heat resistant and abrasion resistant wire loom and ran through the undercarriage to the battery and into the cabin for the brake controller.

 

[TallCityCruzer]

Here are pics of the wiring with the inline fuse and the supplied breakers for the 7 way adapter for the brake controller. I also included the specs of the converter. Hope this helps you.

 

[TallCityCruzer]

After looking at your wiring setup you should have the following color code setup for your specific converter using this format, Converter wire color = vehicle wire color:
Tail lights: Brown = Red/Green stripe
Left: Yellow = Green/Black stripe
Right: Green = Green/yellow stripe
Brakes: Red = Green/ white stripe

 

[TallCityCruzer]

Wire as shown above and you should be good to go!

 

[Gretsch]

I did this same thing some time back. I created a diagram that shows what the factory tail light wires do which helped me figure out how to wire up the same Curt adapter you are using. Using this diagram and instructions that came with the Curt, it was easy enough to figure out where everything goes. See the quoted post below:

So I was able to get this going and wired up. Got everything wired up and it amazingly worked on the first try. I thought it might be helpful to include what each wire does in the factory taillight plug so others will know where to splice if they wanted to set up their 60 for towing as well. I made a crude diagram of what wires do what. This is looking at the harness on the truck side with the taillight assembly unplugged and the locking tab up. The ground wire is a white wire. Find that to make sure this diagram is in the correct orientation to what you are physically looking at when finding wires. My 60 is an 84. I have no idea if this was changed around between model years. Both taillights on mine use the same pinout for both sides. I just needed one side to make this work however. Hope this helps someone else down the road.

Here is a link to the wiring adapter I used to make this work:

Amazon.com: CURT 59236 Multi-Function Taillight Converter Kit: Automotive

Its a powered adapter that converts from 3-wire to 2-wire systems. It gets power from the vehicle battery so it does not require the power from the lights themselves to drive the trailer lights. The pictures on Amazon don't show everything you get. There is a little converter box as well as what the pictures show. Anyway hope this helps someone get this done fast.

I think if you wire this up like @TallCityCruzer suggested, you should be good to go. Thought maybe the factory wiring pinout would be helpful here however in case you have to troubleshoot further. HTH.

 

[DickM]

For future reference, I used the info from this thread 4 wire trailer plug and play kit, and had great success.

No hacking wires or using those splice connectors. And you can go back to factory setup at any time.