RV dealer messed up wiring...
The time had come for me to test hooking up my car to the trailer after I upgraded the house batteries and installed my big inverter.
When I bought the trailer, I also bought a brake controller, 7-way connector, etc, and had it "professionally installed" at Veurinks, outside Grand Rapids Michigan, where I also bought my trailer. The guys in the shop explained they had installed a heavy duty charge-cable direct from the battery to the trailer, so I could recharge the house batteries while driving. The cable isn't heavy duty in my opinion, it looks to be 10 gauge, which is good enough for 20-30 amps I guess.
So I back-up near the trailer, unplug the trailer from the shore power post and plug into the 7-way on my TV.
I go into the trailer to check my dc meter, and see I left the inverter on, and its drawing about 40 amps ... so I turn off the inverter and check the charge-cable fuse under the hood of the TV. sure enough, it's blown. I disconnect from the trailer, turn the engine off, replace the fuse (30A), restart the engine, and reconnect the trailer.
Back in to the trailer and see the amps coming in are very low, only about 2 amps. I go back and check the under hood fuse, it's good.
Go to check the 7-way connector and notice an awful smell of burning plastic. I pull the connector apart and notice a whift of smoke come up from where the cable runs back into the vehicle. The ground wire is completely melted, it had burned off all its insulation, and some of the plastic foam it was laying on!
Turns out the professionals overlooked something during their installation. They forgot to upgrade the ground wire! The 10 gauge charge wire was dumping plenty of amps into the trailer, but the 18-20 gauge return wire was unable to handle that juice and fried.
Taking the 7-way apart, I find the ground wire melted from where it screwed into the 7-way, all the way to a little box labeled "CURT Standard Duty, Taillight Converter" and then from that box to a point where they vampire connected into my factory wiring harness. I can't tell if the vehicle wiring is damaged at this point, it disappears into a bunch of paneling that doesn't want to come off easily.
The Curt box appears to be glued shut, so I can't repair the wiring running to and from it.
Looking up specs on the 7-way cable for the trailer, it has a 10 gauge +12v wire and ground wire, a 12 gauge brake wire and the rest of the wires are 14 gauge. So, my plan is to visit Radioshack or Best Buy and get some white 8 gauge amplifier hook-up wire, the nice flexible kind, and wire that into the 7-way socket on the TV, and put a ring terminal on the other end. I'll find a nice body bolt somewhere, sand off the paint and bolt that wire into the body ground of the TV, as the installers should have done in the first place. This should give the current a nice path to and from the trailer. I'll have to replace the converter box, and I will just terminate its ground "output" to the body ground bolt as well.
SO, just something to watch out for if you have a "professional" do some work for you, ask questions and double check their work. I'm kicking myself, since had I inspected the work they had done, I would have noticed the lack of a good ground, and could have had it fixed there instead of doing it myself in my driveway.
When I bought the trailer, I also bought a brake controller, 7-way connector, etc, and had it "professionally installed" at Veurinks, outside Grand Rapids Michigan, where I also bought my trailer. The guys in the shop explained they had installed a heavy duty charge-cable direct from the battery to the trailer, so I could recharge the house batteries while driving. The cable isn't heavy duty in my opinion, it looks to be 10 gauge, which is good enough for 20-30 amps I guess.
So I back-up near the trailer, unplug the trailer from the shore power post and plug into the 7-way on my TV.
I go into the trailer to check my dc meter, and see I left the inverter on, and its drawing about 40 amps ... so I turn off the inverter and check the charge-cable fuse under the hood of the TV. sure enough, it's blown. I disconnect from the trailer, turn the engine off, replace the fuse (30A), restart the engine, and reconnect the trailer.
Back in to the trailer and see the amps coming in are very low, only about 2 amps. I go back and check the under hood fuse, it's good.
Go to check the 7-way connector and notice an awful smell of burning plastic. I pull the connector apart and notice a whift of smoke come up from where the cable runs back into the vehicle. The ground wire is completely melted, it had burned off all its insulation, and some of the plastic foam it was laying on!
Turns out the professionals overlooked something during their installation. They forgot to upgrade the ground wire! The 10 gauge charge wire was dumping plenty of amps into the trailer, but the 18-20 gauge return wire was unable to handle that juice and fried.
Taking the 7-way apart, I find the ground wire melted from where it screwed into the 7-way, all the way to a little box labeled "CURT Standard Duty, Taillight Converter" and then from that box to a point where they vampire connected into my factory wiring harness. I can't tell if the vehicle wiring is damaged at this point, it disappears into a bunch of paneling that doesn't want to come off easily.
The Curt box appears to be glued shut, so I can't repair the wiring running to and from it.
Looking up specs on the 7-way cable for the trailer, it has a 10 gauge +12v wire and ground wire, a 12 gauge brake wire and the rest of the wires are 14 gauge. So, my plan is to visit Radioshack or Best Buy and get some white 8 gauge amplifier hook-up wire, the nice flexible kind, and wire that into the 7-way socket on the TV, and put a ring terminal on the other end. I'll find a nice body bolt somewhere, sand off the paint and bolt that wire into the body ground of the TV, as the installers should have done in the first place. This should give the current a nice path to and from the trailer. I'll have to replace the converter box, and I will just terminate its ground "output" to the body ground bolt as well.
SO, just something to watch out for if you have a "professional" do some work for you, ask questions and double check their work. I'm kicking myself, since had I inspected the work they had done, I would have noticed the lack of a good ground, and could have had it fixed there instead of doing it myself in my driveway.
