Cleaning trailer electric cord contacts

Question

Member RoyF posted the following in the 5th wheel forum and I though a lot of you might like it also. I asked and received his permission to post it again here.
My italics and red print.

I finally found the little wire brush that is small enough to get between and clean each of seven sections of a trailer's seven-pin connector, so I pass this discovery along in case I am not the only one who did not know how to find them.

It's called a air-gun brush, or a paint-sprayer brush. I found some at Harbor Freight, but in the paint-sprayer department. (Thanks to Harbor Freight for directing me to the right department.) Amazon has them, too.

A little later I posted a link to where the brushes could be purchased.
Is this the one?
Air brush cleaning tools
Barney

He responded:

Thanks, BarneyS, you have it.

I had been getting "trailer disconnected" and "turn signal not working" messages off and on for some time, and my trailer brake and turn lights finally stopped working. I was afraid that the problem might be hard to trace, but just cleaning the trailer's 7-pin contacts solved the problem.

The OP

lwiddis · Answer

I bought the brushes yesterday and will try them out. TY

reneeg · Answer

Thanks for the info. RoyF is fortunate that cleaning his 7-pin connector worked. We got the "trainer disconnected" message and it was the actual trailer brake wires.

boomerweps · Answer

Mechanical cleaning is sometimes needed, but there are electrical contact cleaners in a spray that work great. One brand available through electrical supply and pro audio stores is De-Oxit brand, works great on analog mixers, and the amount of electrical flow is critical there.

bobbo · Answer

As I was hooking up to leave (on 7/4) for a 6 week trip into Canada, I got the "left turn signal failure" message. I sprayed carburetor cleaner into each of the 7-pin's sockets and scraped it with a small screwdriver. I followed that with WD-40 and the screwdriver. Fixed the problem so far (10 days later). Carburetor cleaner and WD-40 were what I had on hand and I was getting ready to pull out.

profdant139 · Answer

Thanks to Roy and Barney for this post -- I found it in the archives, and it was very helpful!

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Cleaning trailer electric cord contacts

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