Trailer Hitch

[naossoan]

Thanks for your help thus far guys.

I have a question regarding hooking up the flat 4 trailer lights connector.

I've got my rear tail lights housing off of the truck right now and I used a multimeter to find out which wires are for what functions.

Black - Ground
Green - Brakes
Green/White - standard tail/running lights
Blue/red - reverse
Green/Blue - turn signal

So the Green and Green/White lines both go into the same bulb because when I hit the brakes the standard running lights just get brighter.

And there is a second bulb and cable for the turn signal as mentioned.

This connector wiring says that White goes to Ground, Brown goes to tail lights, Yellow goes to Left Turn and Brakes. Green goes to Right Turn and Brakes.

White and Brown are easily enough connected.

The problem is how am I supposed to connect the 1 yellow cable to both the Brake cable and the Left Turn cable. I mean I can easily enough cut a bit off the end of the Yellow cable, solder it onto itself a couple inches down the cable and heat shrink it so that Yellow cable now has 2 connection points, but I I connect those into the brakes and the turn signal as the wiring thing says, won't that connect my trucks brakes and turn signals together as well? Meaning that if I press the brakes the bulb for the turn signal will light up too and if I put the signal on it will turn on the bulb for the brakes as well?

This doesn't seem to work very well in my head. Am I thinking about this all wrong?

[Feds]

You need a tail light converter:

http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/browse/4 ... ?locale=en

If you're really ambitious, you might be able to find a plug-and-play one, but this will work fine.

[naossoan]

Ah yes! I was wondering about this. Thanks so much!

I accidentally bought the Trailer side of the Flat 4 connector and half-already-wired it to my truck so I'm going to have to undo that work I did.

I was at a local place today which had a "3 to 2" connector which from my understanding you would wire the Yellow (left) to the Yellow of the flat4 connector, the Green (right) to the Green of the flat4 connector, and then it had a third Red wire which said it connected to the brakes. So it would be like this...

Ground from Truck -> Ground of Flat4
Taillights from Truck -> Taillights of Flat4
Left from Truck -> Left of "3to2" -> Yellow of Flat4 "Brakes+Left"
Right from Truck -> Right of "3to2" -> Green of Flat4 "Brakes+Right"
Brakes from truck -> Red of "3to3"

Then that little box somehow connects those circuits together. It looks to me like it's essentially the same thing as the thing you posted for me except for it look like that one already has the Flat4 connector already wired in, so I just bought the wrong thing that's all.

Oh I found it! This thing. http://www.thehitchstore.com/images/large/imgI-24.jpg

The thing you posted looks a lot easier though so maybe I'll just go pick that up the next time I go over to Canadian Tire. That 3 to 2 connector was like $22 at this local place (murder prices, the consequences of living in a rural small town!)

[mararmeisto]

You need a converter that takes three tail-lights to two tail-lights. Being a non-NAMPOS vehicle, there are three separate lights to indicate the driver's intentions.

Unless of course you build yourself a trailer that has three tail-lights.

[FalcoColumbarius]

My trailer originated in the UK. When it came here they disconnected the proper indicator lights and wired up the brake lights to sort of flash when the indicator switch was triggered, this way they could add the extra converter to the towing wiring &c.. When I got my kit installed by E&H in Burnaby (would recommend them on any day of the year) ~ I rewired my trailer to the original set up and split the wiring prior to the converter box and ran a second adaptor. This way I have two plugs, the customised five pin one for my trailer that is running the full compliment lighting and the E&H four pin plug for in the event that I pull another trailer.

Falco.

[naossoan]

Seems that RichD has disable private message receiving so I can't send him a message. Does he have an online shop that I can buy one of these pyro kits from?

Thanks

[mararmeisto]

Seems that RichD has disable private message receiving so I can't send him a message. Does he have an online shop that I can buy one of these pyro kits from?

Thanks

He still has an email. Send him one of those.

[naossoan]

Literally exactly what I was worried about regarding this trip had happened.

I spoke with Rich he said the Pyro thing shouldn't be an issue with the 2.8 sub cause it's so light. Well I guess I packed too much.

I was driving highway 3 after Creston to Castlegar. The entire way up the main steep parts everything seemed fine and dandy. Had no issues at all. Though maybe I did but they had settled themselves by having short cooling periods.


At the turnoff after coming down the big mountain then going up the second big hill on the way to Castlegar I had an issue. I was going up this hill, cruising about 3k rpm with overdrive turned off and I just kind of though to myself "I think I'm going to stop at the top of this hill and give the truck a beak, this is a pretty big hill."

It was almost literally like a scene from a movie. I get to the top of the hill and start pulling over and start seeing SMOKE and smell BURNING from the engine bay.

I am like oh my god my engine is on fire I'm going to die. I got out and popped the hood and the what I think is the turbo was literally glowing red hot. Red. $#&*$. Hot. The smell of burning I guess is just residual oil that was around there or whatever.

I $#&*$ lost it I am like oh my god and shut the engine off and flagged down a passer by because I was sure I'd be walking to vancouver Island from here. I he gets out, turbo mo longer red hot. He's like my truck is a turbo diesel too you should never shut it off let the fan do its thing turn it back on.

So I turned it back on and I was literally blown away at the fact that my truck was still working. I waited a minute or 2 then blipped the throttle with the choke lever and all seemed fine and dandy.

I then went down the other side of the mountain and into Castlegar very cautiously.
I'm paranoid that this is going to happen again so I'm going to take very frequent breaks.

This trailer probably weighs around 2800 lbs and my truck is fully loaded with stuff as well. I I haven't hit a scale so I don't know what my weight is exactly. But I read these can tow 4000 lbs easily... Maybe just not up prolonged mountains?

I hope I didn't cause any permanent damage :(

[Mr. Flibble]

Next time if the turbo gets hot: do not shut down the engine!

Instead, pull over and let it idle. Believe it or not, this actually cools the turbo down.

In a nutshell, when you are under heavy load, you have screaming hot exhaust - making the turbo cherry red. When you are under idle, you have (relatively speaking) very cold exhaust. Thu, your engine under idle helps to cool down your turbo. This is why some vehicles have a turbo timer to idle the engine for a bit.

[BIGWOOD]

Next time if the turbo gets hot: do not shut down the engine!

Instead, pull over and let it idle. Believe it or not, this actually cools the turbo down.

In a nutshell, when you are under heavy load, you have screaming hot exhaust - making the turbo cherry red. When you are under idle, you have (relatively speaking) very cold exhaust. Thu, your engine under idle helps to cool down your turbo. This is why some vehicles have a turbo timer to idle the engine for a bit.

I agree.

Crested hills are also a bad scenerio. The turbo/engine superheats under load going up an hill and then cools faster than normal (back pressure) coming down the hill and then superheats again going up the hill. Result is usually a blown head gasket or worst cracked block and seized turbo.

[RickJ]

The reason for idling after a long hard run is in fact to allow the turbo to cool down. The main reason is because the thing is turning so fast and so hot that once you shut your engine down, the oil pump stops pumping oil which stops the flow of lube oil through the bearings of the turbo (and all other engine components) which not only lubricates but also cools. Once the oil flow has stopped, the temperature starts to increase once again and the oil that is left in the bearings will begin to coke, which causes bearing damage and amongst other things just bad mojo for the whole picture. An automotive turbocharger can rotate under heavy loads at up to 150,000 RPM. Its going to take a bit of time to spin down from those speeds so you want oil flowing through the bearings. My 4m40 has a water cooled turbo housing which also will stop taking away heat once the engine is shut down. From this day on...give it a few minutes when you can.