Every other trailer I pull...

[dhirocz]

...has a bunch of issues. Half of the time, it's a bad ground.

I already verified the ground coming from my truck has good continuity...someone slathered grease over all of the connections on the trailer to the point that it is bridging the positive to ground all over, and causes all the lights to blink when you turn on the running lights. It's overcoming the ground when the headlights are on.

So I put on my thinking cap and ran a temporary ground from my chassis to the fifth wheel. Voila, no more issue.

I don't see many trucks at all with a ground strap on a fifth wheel, but I've heard of it. It's not supposed to be the primary ground...but the trailer body is supposed to be grounded. My thinking here is grounding the fifth wheel to provide a better ground might help me avoid some of these issues with the trailers my company has, due to how they maintain them, and keep me from loosing time, money and ultimately keep me from being at the mercy of the dot man.

I also noticed my flasher, that was acting up earlier, now acts fine. I'm curious if there is something I'm not considering here that might be damaged by running the extra ground. Thoughts?

[Rockhwy]

I have had similar problems with lights on the trailers I pull, I do a lot of drop and hooks sometimes up to 4 or 5 per day and it would wear light cord plug and would not make good contact, replaced a lot of plug inserts . I bought a Grote ultra link light cord and no led with wearing out plug for about 2 years now. Years ago it was quite common to have fifth wheel ground wire to frame but back then every light was a incandescent bulb in a socket they would corrode easily shake loose draw a lot of amps. Lights have come along way since then.

[Waterloo]

I was having the same issues with my old Pete, we were drop and hook on both ends. It took a bit to discover that it was the factory installed fifth wheel to chassis ground strap, somehow it was damaged and hanging by a thread. Replaced that, problem solved. I would leave the ground strap in place, I doubt that you are harming anything, and in all likelihood have avoided other more problematic issues.

[dhirocz]

I don't have a ground strap on it right now...just a temporary ground. Some of their trailers are LED, some use incandescent bulbs, most are a mix between the two.

This trailer actually has alot of incandescent bulbs on it so my take on it is it's overloading the ground from the 7 pin. I should be able to get a nice ground strap at the auto parts store.

[stevesparts]

Had the same problem when i pulled tank that had motors in for the pumps had to add a grounding strap as at some places that we unloaded at the trl. would sit at funny angles and not ground well or some of the trailers where just funky and you be driving at night looking like a disco with the lights flashing away.
but adding a grounding strap should not hurt anything and help with with the not so hot trailers.. incandescent lights...the NOT so good days... "but it was working just a min ago sir" ahhhh memories. :( lol