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