It is probably obvious to you that I am not a mechanic and I am not an RV technician. So sometimes I don't get it right have to do things over. I feely admit that. Hopefully the mistakes are small. Hopefully someone else can benefit from my mistakes too.
Take the clearance and marker lights which I wrote about on April 9th. I replaced the first five out of fourteen and tried to connect the white (negative) wires by wrapping them around the mounting screw. Later I found a couple of these connections were poor. So I removed the all five lights and installed ring terminals on the ends of the white wires to ensure a really solid connection.
Ring Terminal |
In the picture below, the connection between the white wire and the mounting screw is very poor and unreliable. This marker light is designed for mounting on a metal automotive surface, where the mounting screw on the right would ground to the metal vehicle body without having to attach to a wire. Unfortunately my motorhome sidewall is not conductive and not grounded, so the white ground wire is required.
Before: poor connection for the white wire |
Crimping the ring terminal onto the wire |
Here is the finished light, with two new mounting screws. I added those because the old mounting screws were no longer holding as well as I would like.
Finished: ring terminal, wire routed through new hole and two new mounting screws. And of course lots of silicone! |
After completing this, I used the same method to replace the five remaining clearance lights at the front of the motorhome, and four side marker lights. That completes a total of fourteen lights. Now I can rest assured that the lights will be watertight and reliable for years to come.
4 comments:
You show a ring terminal being crimped on the black wire, where does that wire hook up?
Nice blog. I also have a 1985 Glendale 23 ft camper. I've done so much of the same things to mine I should have started a blog too. Instead of silicon caulking use thermo plastic. It is much better at sticking and is paintable.
Dear anonymous: the marker light comes with the black wire already connected!
Paul: you are so right about silicone. I have come to regret that decision. Silicone is not paintable, and collects road dust at a different rate than the motorhome siding, so after a dusty drip you can really see the silicone lines. I would also like to try polyurethane calking.
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