Tail-light replacement -too many wires!

KermitT-TMO

New Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2025
Posts
6
In the pictures attached are the original tail-light assembly, and the front and back of the new assembly.
Can someone please guide me on the proper connection of the wires? The two additional white wires on the back are throwing me off.
(searched before I asked w/o success) Thank you, Kermie
 

Attachments

  • B0FA853C-AEC6-4ECB-9D0B-A1BEBF06190E.JPG
    B0FA853C-AEC6-4ECB-9D0B-A1BEBF06190E.JPG
    143 KB · Views: 147
  • 71B4B86D-F0B0-4335-9F0F-635A3D432A43.JPG
    71B4B86D-F0B0-4335-9F0F-635A3D432A43.JPG
    95 KB · Views: 117
  • 0275983F-05B9-46FC-9D57-DBD3B854FC48.JPG
    0275983F-05B9-46FC-9D57-DBD3B854FC48.JPG
    96 KB · Views: 131
Short answer? The white wires are simply duplicate ground connections.

Long answer in case you care? Look at your last picture. You can see the following stuff. The fixture has two bulb sockets. One of them holds a dual-filament bulb (two bulbs in one glass globe), so the fixture needs three hot feeds. These are the red, green, and black wires. Each of the bulbs also needs to have its metal shell grounded, so both bulbs are attached to the metal plates that are partially visible beneath the glass globes of the bulbs. Now look at your second picture. Many RVs put screws through the plastic towers just below the riveted white-wire connections, and into the metal skin of the trailer. The screws contact the metal plates on their way through, as well as the metal skin of the trailer, completing the ground connection. In other RVs, it might be that the extra screws are not used, or the trailer skin is fiberglass, or the metal skin is not grounded. So the maker of the fixture provides the white wires as an additional alternate way to make the ground connection. I believe that TM mounts the fixtures at the four corners, but I don't recall if they put additional screws through the holes near the rivets. If yes, then the ground connection is made by those screws, and you can simply insulate and tie off the white wires. If not, you could either run new screws through the holes near the rivets, or you could put the end of one of the white wires around one of the corner screws - screws which go through the aluminum skin of the TM.
 
Last edited:
I like learning, so I appreciate the “long answer”!
I thought those may be ground wires, but I’m not confident in electrical work.
Thank you for solving the problem. I appreciate your work within this community.
 

Try RV LIFE Pro Free for 7 Days

  • New Ad-Free experience on this RV LIFE Community.
  • Plan the best RV Safe travel with RV LIFE Trip Wizard.
  • Navigate with our RV Safe GPS mobile app.
  • and much more...
Try RV LIFE Pro Today
Back
Top Bottom