The truck was in position and I locked
the trailer coupler to the ball. A quick click
of safety chains, break-away cable and the trailer
wiring connector and I'd be on my way.
Uh oh, no left turn signal!
I rapidly churned the possibilities of the cause of the
problem
through my head. Must be the ground connection.
Quickly then, remove all rust from the trailer ball and
the trailer coupler to
improve the contact for ground.
Still no signal; that didn’t help.
Oh, no
it must be in the trailer turn signal wiring! A bad
ground to the trailer
frame somewhere. Short on time and low on
patience, I wasn’t looking forward to a wrestling match
with tracing through the trailer wiring spaghetti.
But, I had to have working
signals on the horse trailer.
Stepping back and reviewing the problem, I resisted
the strong temptation to begin tearing things apart for
the sake of acting quickly.
The voice of reason and experience took over for the
voice of the know-it-all in my head.
Why not test the truck connector for power first? Is the
left turn signal in the truck getting current to the
outbound plug?
My testing meter said nope - no current here.
The voice of reason chimed in again and asked is that
because of corroded truck wiring or because of a
blown fuse for the trailer wiring?
Checking for a blown fuse is a lot easier than a
search mission for broken, missing or corroded
wiring. I felt like a Las Vegas jackpot winner when I
looked in the fuse compartment! The fifty-cent
mini fuse had blown. With the spare fuse plugged in, I
was on my way.
If you own a horse trailer two things are
certain:
You have had wiring problems or you are
going to
have wiring problems.
It’s as certain as having problems in
a business.
How you handle the troubleshooting and fix of your
problems will determine how much time you
waste
and frustration you endure.
Often the causes of problems are simple.
The tractor doesn’t start because it’s out of fuel,
your best lesson horse is acting up because the girth
is pinching him,
there is a flood in front of the barn because the gutter
downspout is plugged with leaves.
Applying the same thought pattern to your horse
business:
- Is your hardworking employee always late
because he wants to aggravate you or because he
waits with his young daughter every morning to make
sure she gets on the school bus safely?
- Is your boarding business losing money
every month because everyone leaves too many lights
on contributing to the high electric bill or are your
boarding rates too low?
- Are you exhausted from working too many
hours doing everything because no one helps or
because you refuse to ask for help or delegate work to
others?
The Solution.
Make it easy on yourself when business problems
arise. Stop, pause and take a deep breath
and ask
yourself, “What are the possible conditions that are
creating this problem?" and rank the solutions by
ease of implementation.
Start with the easy stuff for two very good reasons:
- It's easy.
- That's where the problem usually is.
