When we purchased our car transporter trailer in October last year, (2024), we knew that the offside indicator was not flashing. Mark tested it, and it worked from a 12v source, so it appeared to be a wiring issue. The wiring was wrapped in bicycle handlebar cloth tape. The problem with this is was that is was holding water, and the joints it was protecting were wet and had an issue of corrosion. As it was very sticky, it was awful to remove in order to maintain, pulling wires out of badly made joints. Arrggghhhh..! This needed fixing so we can spend time rallying, not worry about car transporter equipment.
One of the issues was an intermittent connection that appeared to be at the plug end, where you plug into the towing vehicle. The plastic plug was so old and been exposed to the sun for so long, it was brittle, and fell apart upon disassembly. Today, a new metal plug was swapped into place, and this solved one of the problems.
Still, back to the main wiring issue at the rear of the trailer. The main loom runs down the offside, to a multiple taped cluster of a mess of wiring, rotting under the handlebar cloth tape. This was replaced by a proper weather proof terminal block, the type you can break out if needed for repeater lights, which we intended to do, and as per the picture, we now have side indicator repeater lights on the rear most wheel arches.
A similar weather proof terminal block was added on the near side and then the two terminal blocks electrically joined allowing any other lights to be added as needed in the future. Where needed, any wiring joins were soldered, then a double layer of heat shrink was used to help stem any future moisture ingress.
Another addition that we added was the trailer warning triangles. We think all trailers should have them fitted in case the combination is parked up in a safe place not requiring a parking light. The tail light cluster does have a reflector, but, it is very small, and so a large reflective red warning triangle was added to both sides.
So, our car transporter trailer is now finally back operational, with the wiring completely overhauled by Mark in his little workshop, ready to carry Felicity on her next rally adventure.
EDIT…
It was noticed when doing the electrics, that we were short of a tie down point, something we did not notice when we purchased the trailer, there were only 7 instead of 8..! Mark measured the others to be half inch in diameter, and Mark fortunately had some spare half inch bar. Using a blow torch to heat the bar, it was bent by 100 degrees to match the others, then welded to the trailer.
And while the welder was out, Mark quickly fabricated up a ramp rack down the middle of the trailer using some scraps of angle iron and flat bar in order to make a “guided” slot that the ramps locate into. At the rear end, the ramps are simply bolted down with two threaded locating pins (bolts welded to the bed) that stick up from the middle of the car transporter bed. A quick splash of black Smoothrite and hopefully the paint will fade to match the rest of the car transporter bed.
