Trailer lights

[Saintsson]

So I welded a steel frame off the back of our bus.

I have some trailer lights but cannot access the wiring under the bus like a typical car or truck.

Looking for the best advice on how to wire this. Trying to determine if I access the wiring by drilling through from the inside or if I should run wire exposed from the lights on the outside.

Anyone have any insight?

[Versatile]

Originally Posted by Saintsson

So I welded a steel frame off the back of our bus.

I have some trailer lights but cannot access the wiring under the bus like a typical car or truck.

Looking for the best advice on how to wire this. Trying to determine if I access the wiring by drilling through from the inside or if I should run wire exposed from the lights on the outside.

Anyone have any insight?

As it is a Van i would look in side or from removing a whole tail light assembly.Not familiar with what your van looks like.

[BlackJohn]

Pull the taillights off and signals, backup etc and take some pics for us to advise from. Will you need an electric brake circuit as well and maybe some auxiliary power at the trailer connector?

[dan-fox]

Originally Posted by BlackJohn

Pull the taillights off and signals, backup etc and take some pics for us to advise from. Will you need an electric brake circuit as well and maybe some auxiliary power at the trailer connector?

Since it's a "van" is there any chance that you could get a pre-wired plug-compatible harness from e-trailer.com or similar? I've had good luck going that way with passenger vehicles.

[Brad_SwiftFur]

Originally Posted by dan-fox

Since it's a "van" is there any chance that you could get a pre-wired plug-compatible harness from e-trailer.com or similar? I've had good luck going that way with passenger vehicles.

I would be surprised if this is a viable option, as most body manufacturers supply their own lighting wiring.

What I've done is to simply run wires from the lights in question down to the trailer plug - which should be fine if your trailer doesn't have a ton of lights and won't draw much current.

Should you have a trailer with a lot of running lights, you might consider running a thick wire from the battery and using a relay to switch it on/off (I may do this eventually if I anticipate heavy electrical loads.)