I have a 1998 Dodge Ram 1500 with a factory installed tow package.

On a recent trip, I discovered I didn't have any tail lights. I had turn signals and I had break lights. After some troubleshooting, I found that I didn't have any tail light signal from the 7 pin connector on the back of the truck. The truck itself has working tail lights, but that signal isn't getting to the connector and thus not to the trailer.

Any suggestions? My plan is to tap off the trucks tail lights, run a wire down to the connector and basically "light" the wire. Is there a problem with this plan? My hurdle is that I don't know what wire in the harness is for tail lights. Does anyone happen to know or have a resource I can check?

 

Brown wire is tail light.

Wiring diagram can be found in FAQ/DIY thread in the service manual download.

 

Have you taken the truck side plug apart, good chance the wire has corroded away and just needs to be hooked back up to its terminal.

On the truck side the wire colour is Black/orange for the running lights. There is a nice wiring diag in the 96 manual page 8W-54-4 of the truck plug wiring.

And for the FSM download

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/2nd-gen...e-manuals.html


For the trailer side of things

http://www.etrailer.com/faq-wiring.aspx

Don't know if you need it but here it is anyway.

 

Well, I fixed it. It doesn't exactly make sense, but I guess it doesn't have to at this point. I replaced a 40 amp / 32v JCAS fuse in the PDC that was marked "40 amp Trailer". Would be nice if it said "Trailer TL" or something. But since I found it blown, I figured what the hell. I didn't even know about the PDC until I came here. Thanks everyone!

 

Glad you got it fixed.