the other night i picked up a trailor and all the n/s lights didnt work. checked the fuses and they were all ok tried a different unit and the trailerlights were ok. Tried a different Trailer and the tail lights worked both sides but not the marker lights. In the end i was given new electrical lines all fine. and has been since.
question is if it was the electrial lines what was going on with the differing results and what did i do wrong to knacker it because it was fine when i started the shift. I did have an issue with the abs line as it wouldnt go in its home but clearly wouldnt go in the other socket either then all of a sudden slid in like hot knife through butter. Did i cause a short somewhere?
cooper1203:
the other night i picked up a trailor and all the n/s lights didnt work. checked the fuses and they were all ok tried a different unit and the trailerlights were ok. Tried a different Trailer and the tail lights worked both sides but not the marker lights. In the end i was given new electrical lines all fine. and has been since.
question is if it was the electrial lines what was going on with the differing results and what did i do wrong to knacker it because it was fine when i started the shift. I did have an issue with the abs line as it wouldnt go in its home but clearly wouldnt go in the other socket either then all of a sudden slid in like hot knife through butter. Did i cause a short somewhere?
cooper1203:
the other night i picked up a trailor and all the n/s lights didnt work. checked the fuses and they were all ok tried a different unit and the trailerlights were ok. Tried a different Trailer and the tail lights worked both sides but not the marker lights. In the end i was given new electrical lines all fine. and has been since.
question is if it was the electrial lines what was going on with the differing results and what did i do wrong to knacker it because it was fine when i started the shift. I did have an issue with the abs line as it wouldnt go in its home but clearly wouldnt go in the other socket either then all of a sudden slid in like hot knife through butter. Did i cause a short somewhere?
A bit of wear and tear on the electrical leads. Over time, the sockets in the end of the leads lose their firm connection with the pins on the trailer. You can often restore reliable operation by tweaking the metal sleeves so they grip the pins a bit more securely but eventually a new lead(s) is/are required.
Tend to find the Scania suzies, 2 into 1, are more robust and suffer less with wear than the single lead types.
As above you can clean the connections and make some adjustments to give better contacts but sooner or later new suzies will be needed, they’ll all wear and break down faster if allowed to get all tangled up.
Probably not - electrical Suzies are effectively a consumable item. They’ll last better (and more reliably) if you keep them clean and untangled, and avoid “screwing” the trailer around unnecessarily but unless you are the only driver of “your” unit there’s not a lot you can do about it.
It certainly helps though to have an understanding of how the whole setup works (basic electrical circuits and so on) and how to deal with minor defects from your own resources rather than having to sit and wait for a fitter to come out.
Juddian:
Tend to find the Scania suzies, 2 into 1, are more robust and suffer less with wear than the single lead types.
As above you can clean the connections and make some adjustments to give better contacts but sooner or later new suzies will be needed, they’ll all wear and break down faster if allowed to get all tangled up.
The Renault I normally use has the siamesed Suzies. It’s only two years old but is quite prone to connection/continuity issues on the electrics (our trailers almost all have LED lamps, whose low current draw often exacerbates the issue of sub-optimal connections). The regular night driver is very much of the “Report as a defect - not my problem” school of thought and thinks nothing of defecting it for something as simple as a blown bulb. Several times I’ve started in the morning to be told “Sorry, your unit is VOR’d” but it has only taken me 10 minutes to fix armed with nothing more than basic tools and my trusty pocket knife.
Still, at least it means most of the other drivers are reluctant to use it
cooper1203:
the other night i picked up a trailor and all the n/s lights didnt work. checked the fuses and they were all ok tried a different unit and the trailerlights were ok. Tried a different Trailer and the tail lights worked both sides but not the marker lights. In the end i was given new electrical lines all fine. and has been since.
question is if it was the electrial lines what was going on with the differing results and what did i do wrong to knacker it because it was fine when i started the shift. I did have an issue with the abs line as it wouldnt go in its home but clearly wouldnt go in the other socket either then all of a sudden slid in like hot knife through butter. Did i cause a short somewhere?
There is no standard wiring for trailers that all people follow and this is why you were getting different faults, your 7N susie has a left & right lighting wire & one of them was broken or had a defective pin which caused the lighting faults.
cooper1203:
question is if it was the electrial lines what was going on with the differing results and what did i do wrong to knacker it because it was fine when i started the shift. I did have an issue with the abs line as it wouldnt go in its home but clearly wouldnt go in the other socket either then all of a sudden slid in like hot knife through butter. Did i cause a short somewhere?
Trailer one has marker lights and side lights for each side fed by one feed from the suzie so one feed powers the N/S lights, another powers the O/S.
Trailer two uses one of the feeds from the suzie to power the rear lights and the other to power the marker lights.
With the ABS connector not going in it’s usually that C shaped metal bracket. You’ll find if you look at it it’s got splayed a bit so one side won’t go behind that locking tab on the socket. The fix is to take it out and just squeeze the ends of that C shaped metal bracket where the little plastic rollers are together a bit.
A bent metal clip will typically prevent the thing being clipped on, but if the issue is that the plug won’t go fully into the socket it’s almost certainly a bent or simply mispositioned pin in the plug. Those pins are designed to have a little “wobble” and the matching sockets have a flared entry (oo-err…) to guide them in. If one or more of them has been knocked out of alignment the plug will simply not go all the way in (unless the driver is a neanderthal who, on feeling obvious solid resistance, simply pushes harder and harder until the pin bends completely.
The solution is, on feeling resistance, pull the plug out and try again. Often this will be enough, but if you look at the pins end-on it’s usually obvious which one is out of alignment. Simply push it back into line with your finger.
We used to experience this problem all the time with Foreign (froggy) trailers, the easy fix was to carry a light board. Because most times it was the trailer connection that was the problem either by being a different type or just broken, also the trailers tended to be wired differently that the truck.
