I rebuilt my snowmobile trailer and replaced the halogens with LED stop turn tails. The leds are dim and don't function properly. I am assuming I need a converter on my wiring harness, the issue is it's a brand-new harness on the truck and I'd hate to replace it with another one including a converter. Is there a converter out there meant to be fit on the trailer end of things or can I wire a converter meant to be on the truck, on the trailer instead?

 

Or is there a plug and go converter harness for our applications? All I can find is regular harnesses or converters that need spliced in

 

I believe what you need is resistors. We tried putting led taillights into my friends Dakota and everything went crazy without the resistors.

 

I think the problem is with the trailer somewhere. Have you checked grounds? Putting LED's on any trailer should be no problem. In fact, when you go to use your brake and turn signal, the new LED trailer lights will come on a split second before your truck lights. Putting LED's in place of stock tail lights on your truck without a resistor is when you'll have problems on the truck (really fast blinking). I've hooked up to a trailer with LED's on both of my trucks with no problems.

 

The grounds are solid, I removed them grinded the frame down to bare shinny metal and re installed, no improvements.

 

The wiring diagrams I see online for LEDs show a converter.... I hate wiring and I know this should be easy peasy

 

Wiring is a pain. If you think a converter is needed, give it a try and see what the outcome is. can't be an expensive part. Beings it's a snowmobile trailer, I would check out the rest of the wiring harness on the trailer (what you can see) and see what kind of shape it's in. I know trailers, especially snowmobile trailers, are prone to their wiring corroding from the road salts etc in the winter time.

Also, have you switched all your lights on the trailer to LED? I've heard you can run into problems with lights if you only replace tail lights and not the marker lights or vice versa or some mixture of that. IT might be that type of issue.

 

Electrically speaking the only time LED's will give you a problem is when there is nothing else in the circuit because they don't load the circuit enough. and that is the reason for the resistors. On the trailer they are just an added set of lights, and don't need a resistor. If you can get a long piece of wire and connect it to the contact on the connector on the truck and then directly to one of the led light it should light brightly. If it does I would say that you probably have a harness problem and it will need replacing. However do a good visual on the harness and you may be able to find a weak spot on it. I know it is a PITA, I just did my box trailer.

 

Using any trailer(especially with leds) is it a good idea to use a electronic flasher. It doesn't need load(bulbs) to flash and will keep the same rate regardless of load. What kind of led did you put on? It it a bulb conversion?

 

Boom, I got it. Okay so here is the deal and I feel kinda funny I messed this up. So the difference between my halogen and leds (other than the obvious) is the halogens have two wires (stop turn) the LED have 3 (stop turn ground). I matched up stop turn to the harness and then grounded each light individually. Now the trailer wiring harness has a ground wire I thought needed grounded to the trailer. So I did so.

What I really needed to do was run that 3rd ground wire from the lights to the ground wire on the trailer harness and not ground it to anything. The T-harness I bought for the truck with the 4 prong conecter grounds everything when hooked up through the trucks main ground. Thanks for the replies and help everyone.

No converters or anything nessisary, this was so frustrating because the trailer wiring harness is brand new, lights brand new, and truck truck harness brand new.