Need Tail Light Wiring Advice

[AKGperson]

I'm remodeling my 1985 Coleman tent trailer and am in the process of replacing the original tail light assemblies. The original ones have a single 2-filament incandescent bulb for brake light, tail light and turn signal. Because it has just one bulb it has just one set of wires. The new replacement assembly has two banks of LED lights for brake, tail and turn signal.

Question: Can I connect both hot wires from the new assembly to the single hot wire? I'd like both banks to be tail, brake and turn signal lights on each side.

Normally I would just hook the trailer up to the tow vehicle to check the new lights but the hitch of the trailer is up against the garage door on jack stands and I can't get the tow vehicle close enough to hook it up. (I'll make a temporary harness if I have to but am hoping I don'd have to spend the time and money doing that.)

Thanks in advance for any advice you may have. Please no speculation, I can do plenty of that myself.

Ken

[JFlightRisk]

It sounds like what you want it to do will work. We did a LED upgrade to the original tail lights on our TT, and it was a plug-n-play that I was expecting to be a two beer job. Barely got three sips, and it was done. Just check the wire colors to be sure they're going to the right circuit. I've seen a couple with the brake circuit connected to the parking lights, and vise versa. Interesting to say the least when you're behind them! Good luck on your mod.

[tnchuck100]

Your original light assemblies had 3 connections. 2 wires went to the base of the socket and the shell went to ground (the frame).

You are dealing with TWO circuits. One is the tail lights. The other is both brake and turn signal. ie: The brake lights and the turn signal are the same wire. There is a LEFT and a RIGHT brake/turn wire at the trailer hookup connector.

[AKGperson]

I would have thought the same thing, Chuck, but it has only two wires. One hot and one ground. I'm always very careful about marking things when I remove a part.

Ken

[tnchuck100]

The original is NOT a hot and a ground. One is tail, one is brake/turn. The shell of the socket is the ground and is grounded by a mounting bolt.

If you are referring to the new LED assembly as having only one hot and one ground then there must be an additional module involved to accommodate the original wiring. That module will change the voltage applied to the LED's to change the brightness when brake/turn is needed.

[shadester]

The two original wire from your unit should be the feed for the power to the led light. The red should be the high brightness feed , Black wire low brightness feed and the white, ground. So the two from your original light should go to either the red and black, then the left over from your led light, you will need to run the white wire to the chassis of your unit. And that's if I'm understanding what you have correctly.
Usually the led lights for those function, Have red- bright feed, Black-low bright feed, white- ground. Some I've seen only have terminals to connect to though so that may be a bit more challenging.

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[AKGperson]

Thanks, Chuck. That makes perfect sense. I'm always dealing with AC power and forget that DC is quite different.

By the way, the new assembly has white for ground, green for tail and black for stop/turn per the label while the old assembly has white for ground, yellow and black (unmarked) so I'm going to try green to yellow and black to black first.

I plan to rivet the new assemblies on but will screw them on first to confirm the connections are correct.

Thanks so much for your help.

Ken