I have a 17’ bay boat and am rewiring my trailer. 99% of the time I take it to the ramp in my neighborhood and dont use the lights. Anyway, I am going to use the extension cord method I found on here and do guide post lights. Just wondering if I need the yellow running lights that are forward on the trailer? That would save a splice for me, but want to be ok by the law, I didnt see anything in my search that requires them, but just wanted to double check. Thanks for the help as always.
Don’t have a knack for makin motors crank,
But I’m pretty good at drinkin beer
The best way to a fisherman’s heart is through his fly.
I don’t think you are required to have the running lights on the side. But I’ve seen some very inexpensive lights at Harbor Freight, and there are some that you can clip to your boat’s transom. We used them for years on our two boats-- my dad bought two old fiberglass boats (a 13’ whaler, and a 17’ fabuglass, both were cheap and ran well for a while lol). Neither had working trailer lights, so Dad bought one set of the transom-mount clip-ons and killed two birds with one stone.
Seawest - I just rewired (again) as well. I also went with the extension cord to the tail lights. I took the old wire to the tail lights, which was in decent shape, and used it to run the hot and a ground to the side marker lights and then spliced it in near the front of the trailer where it’s not getting dunked. I also connect all of the ground wires to the trailer at the front (instead of at the light) where I connected the ground from the harness to make sure I maintain a good ground. My problem witht the side marker lights as always been the loss of ground as the mounting hardware that also serves to ground it to the trailer would corrode to point of losing connection. I’m also soaking it with anti-corrosive and may glob some caulk or electric tape on it to protect it. For my wiring connections, I’ve been using the 3M Heat Shrink connectors for several years and have been very pleased with their performance. I even supplement them with some liquid tape and don’t have any problems with those connections failing. You can get the 3M Heat Shrinks connectors at WalMart.
