ELECTRICAL CONNECTION AT TOW BAR.

I enjoyed reading the article by John Wickersham in the January edition of the club magazine on the various electrical connections at the tow bar between caravan and towing vehicle. I thought other members might like to hear about a recent problem with an electrical connection at the tow hitch. My current caravan has a 13 pin single socket connection so I need an adaptor to connect to the 12v and 12s sockets fitted to my Landcruiser.

This arrangement has worked perfectly well since I purchased the caravan in March 2009 but at the last trip out with the caravan in November the nearside caravan road lights started to show a fault similar to a loose connection. If you moved the adaptor cable at the tow hitch the lights would flicker on and off. Fortunately this did not affect the traffic indicators. When we reached the site I disconnected the adaptor from the caravan and set about dismantling the 13 pin socket looking for a loose connection.

There was no loose connection but the whole socket plug was full of water which was causing the electrics to short ciruit. I found this very surprising as the tow hitch is completely covered when the caravan is in storage and on the camp site.

The 13 pin adaptor is well constructed and has rubber seals where the two parts fit together so I am at a loss as to how the water got in to the adaptor. Once I fully dried out the adaptor all the electrics on the caravan worked perfectly.

So now I disconnect the adaptor and store this inside the caravan to ensure that this fault does not repeat itself. I wondered if any other members have sufferred this same fault.