Toad Light Mystery

Thanks everyone for all the replies and suggestions. Finally today, I located my problem. In the circuit I was using for my toad lights until I can get my regular, six-way connector rewired after crunching it, I was using a secondary circuit which had been wired especially for connecting trailer lights. That worked fine until a month or so ago when my signal lights would not work. Today I discovered a trailer-light converter in that circuit. That's what failed. I wired around it and used a flat 4 wire connector and now, everything works!

And the ground!

jswat wrote:
Thanks everyone for your input. The strange thing is, it worked fine until about one month ago, and has for several months on this same setup. I do have a six-pin connector on my MH, I may just have to re-wire it and see if it works that way. Sure hate crawling under the beast and working on my back. Also, I do have the magnetic lights which also work just fine connected the same way. I'll be sure to re-post when (or if) I find a solution.

The way I read this is the only difference between the magnetic lights and the toad lights are the diodes. Mine are the same. The low voltage from my motorhome will work for the magnetics but the diodes will not allow it to pass.

On last thing to check....did you use one of the converter boxes on the motor home to convert the signal from European to US. It may have gone bad. It's a box about the size of a small box of matches. It may be sending the signal, to the plug, but in the wrong combination.

Thanks everyone for your input. The strange thing is, it worked fine until about one month ago, and has for several months on this same setup. I do have a six-pin connector on my MH, I may just have to re-wire it and see if it works that way. Sure hate crawling under the beast and working on my back. Also, I do have the magnetic lights which also work just fine connected the same way. I'll be sure to re-post when (or if) I find a solution.

The problem is in the MH. I bet you are not getting signal on those pins of the MH's 7 pin outlet.

Well, I was corrected in the fact that he's NOT USING A 7 PIN CONNECTOR. He's using a 4 pin flat. Now, in his last post, he states that, he's getting all the correct signals at the 4 pin flat, on the motor home. And, when he connects the pig tail cable from the coach, he gets all the correct same signals, from the end of that cable, where it would attach to the toad. So far, so good.

But, when connected to the toad, he LOOSES brake and turn signals but, keeps the running lights. Hmmmmmm. Mention has been made that it's possibly a GROUND problem. As many of us know, bad grounds are the most common problem for electrical issues in most vehicles.

So, in my opinion, a simple test to see if it's a bad ground between the toad side of the equasion and the coach side would be to simply go get either a set of regular battery jumper cables (since that's a simple way of CLAMPING onto something that's bare metal) or, another larger wire of some type and, clamp it between the two vehicles. That would provide your ground.

As for diodes to "isolate" the coach away from the toad, NEVER done that. I've wired a whole bunch of toads, utilizing the stock tail light bulbs in the process and, never used diodes for that purpose. I use them to isolate the rest of the toads electrical system, but not the coach. I've never had any issues with back-feeding the coach. But, I guess it's a preference thing. If you feel the need for them, then by all means, install them.

As for the OP, this is a bit of an odd one for sure. They work with another vehicle hooked to the input cable but, not with the coach hooked to it. This will be interesting to see/find the solution.
Scott

Still sounds like a bad or poor ground in the Vibe. The tail lights are working because they are back feeding through brake/turn signal filaments.

Let's see. If connected to your other car, everything works fine. That says the problem is not in the toad.

The problem is in the MH. I bet you are not getting signal on those pins of the MH's 7 pin outlet.

I am using a flat, four pin connector at the rear of my MH. I have signal at that point. I am using a four-wire cable to connect to the toad. At the end of that cable I have correct signal, yet when I connect to the toad only the running lights work. Using the very same cable, when I connect to my other car, all lights work. Today I will use a multi meter to check for low voltage.

No puns intended here, but the common thread of NO toad lights, makes the common or ground highly suspicious. It is unlikely that all lights or all diodes or all hot connections went bad at the same time. However, if the ground is faulty or corroded from the coach to the car, it will take out all the toad lights when powered by the pigtail.