Battery Question

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89Layton

89Layton

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Joined
Jul 29, 2015
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30
I just pulled our battery off of our TT, only one wire was hooked up to the battery. The white wire was hooked up to the negative terminal. I am glad we did not need the emergency brakes on the TT this summer. I guess when we had our annual inspection the garage did not hook it back up.

What is the correct hookup for the wires? I thought that the white would be positive and black negative. Is this assumption correct?
 
That coloring is likely but by no means guaranteed. There is no real color standard for 12v wiring, but often the positive will be red or black and the negative white. The negative side cable goes to the frame (chassis) to make it the system ground, so its usually pretty easy to identify which battery cable goes to the negative terminal. It's usually short and goes to a bolt on the trailer frame.
 
The negative wire from the battery should go directly to the TT chassis / ground.  From what I have seen here, color codes for wiring are frequently ignored.
 
Thanks Gary & Grashley.

Arch- yes that was our state safety inspection.
 
89Layton said:
Thanks Gary & Grashley.

Arch- yes that was our state safety inspection.
Click to expand...

Wow I didn't know they did safety inspections on travel trailers. What state is it? 

Do they check the fire extinguisher? What else do they look at?

 
Several states have inspections for all registered vehicles, including trailers. Typical items include stop/tail/turn lighting, marker lights, and any required vehicle safety items, e.g. safety chains for the hitch.

I don't know of any that inspect house safety things, e.g. fire extinguishers, LP detectors, etc.  The inspections are usually done for the reason of highway safety and/or exhaust pollution, but obviously a trailer doesn't get any engine-related inspection items.
 
Gary RV Roamer said:
Several states have inspections for all registered vehicles, including trailers. Typical items include stop/tail/turn lighting, marker lights, and any required vehicle safety items, e.g. safety chains for the hitch.
Click to expand...

In PA they also pull one brake drum from each axle to measure the brake lining.  To do this, they jack up the axle near the middle so it bends.  Then they put it back together with the wrong dirty grease, adjust the wheel bearing wrong, put in an undersized cotter pin, beat up the dust cap and tighten the lug nuts wrong.  I'm not joking, I've had all of the above and much more harm done in the name of safety.

Every year, my trailer gets three inspections.  First to check it so they don't install over-priced parts.  Next, the official inspection station does its nonsense.  Last, I need to go over everything they might have touched, and repack the wheel bearings that were monkeyed with.
 
lynnmor said:
In PA they also pull one brake drum from each axle to measure the brake lining.  To do this, they jack up the axle near the middle so it bends.  Then they put it back together with the wrong dirty grease, adjust the wheel bearing wrong, put in an undersized cotter pin, beat up the dust cap and tighten the lug nuts wrong.  I'm not joking, I've had all of the above and much more harm done in the name of safety.

Every year, my trailer gets three inspections.  First to check it so they don't install over-priced parts.  Next, the official inspection station does its nonsense.  Last, I need to go over everything they might have touched, and repack the wheel bearings that were monkeyed with.
Click to expand...


Do they pull a wheel on class A coaches too?  I really don't like anybody pulling my wheels on anything unless I know they are qualified.
Here in California they did away with safety inspections about the time I moved here in 1970. Smog only now.
 
We are in PA. Basically they are checking anything to do with road safety. When we bought ours and brought it in for inspection the brake away system was not functioning. They found the wires were chewed and a nest from mice. They re-wired it for us and all was good.
 
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