What a pain of a day

Thought I would just replace the busted rear tail light on my trailer today - never even saw that small sign post at the child care centre but no..........

All looked good, then no tail lights on the trailer, brakes are fine, indicators are good. Tore apart the trailer wiring and plugs all circuits are good. Then I noticed that the left rear tail light on the jeep wasn't working either. No problem I thought must be the bulb and sure enough blown. $2.50 later and the repco replacement was in place.

But still no left tail light on the jeep Brake light is fine and its in the same bulb Checked the fuses - blown fuse. Another trip to repco and $2.75 later new fuse in place. Turned on the lights still no left rear tail light And the trailers not evenin the picture at this point - so its a jeep thing.

started checking everything again and another blown fuse - and yes i did the 'must have been a dodgy one' and put in another. - turned on the lights and pop!

Now in the old CJ it would be a case of run a new cable - I replaed the whole loom a cable at a time I think But not so simple in the KJ. I searched on here and the most likely suggestion is a fault in the rear light cluster - given the burning on the tail stop light holder I wouldn't be surprised but I swapped in the fog light holder and same problem. ( in fact what is that lower bulb for its got two fillaments?)

Now I'm thinking maybe I burnt out the trailer harness when I hit that sign. I've got a spare harness but looking at the install instructions it seems to involve removing half the back trim and the seat belts

So - anyone got the bleeding obvious anser I'm missing or do you all think this is just going to be one of those PITA things?

some where you are grounding out. is there any visible damage to the harness?

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2008 KK Liberty Sport NIGHT OPS EDITION + GILLS
OEM & Custom Skids - Factory Tow Package - Rock Lizard Skink Super Sliders
Prototype JBA 4 Inch Lift - JBA UCA's - Flowmaster Super 44 OR - Whacked Resonator
Jet Stage 2 - RL Gecko Basket Rack - Custom Winch Bumper - Recon 10.5K Winch

Got a multimetre? If so, set it to Ohms, and take all those fuses out and check for a short (0 Ohms resistance) between the pins in the rear light. Isolate the rear cluster if you can and check it again. If you cannot find a fault in the rear cluster you might want to look at the trailer connector pins (take it apart, I've found a loose screw rattling around in mine once that was causing an intermittent short circuit. Good luck

So I now know more about the jeep electrics than I wanted to but the problem is fixed

After tearing half the jeep apart to check the trailer harness pure chance had me take the spare off the back... what did I find but a worn wire causing a short in the rego plate light. All good now and now I know that the left hand tail light fuse is also the circuit for the trailer lights - even though the trailer harness plugs in on the right

t

AH that would be fuse #7 I take it. The wiring diagrams in the KJ Service Manual explains all (page 2091 in the 2006 KJ SM). Interesting that the diesel and petrol models are wired differently in various places (just to drive us mad). You can download the Service Manual at Colorado4x4 website (and you need patience for that as the 2006 KJ SM is a 6059 page PDF file.