In case you’re somehow unfamiliar with the irregular “I’d Like To See Them Make…” feature, it was basically a place in the magazine where readers would write in with some general idea for an invention, and then an illustrator would draw a quick little cartoon of it, and everyone would see these and ponder the implications of a world with flavored tongue depressors or rubber andirons or whatever. Often, though, these ideas would be quite prescient; a surprising number of now common automotive (tire pressure monitors on dash, adjustable steering wheels, keyless entry, etc.) and technological (video conferencing, doorbell cameras, etc.) advancements were predicted on those pages:
The suggestion I’m interested in now, though, wasn’t so fortunate to be made real, though I think there is a valid need that’s being addressed. It’s this one:
Extendible trailer lights! Yes, J.H. Schmidt was fucking done with having to wire up trailer lights for whatever car he may have been using to tow his unknown burden, and he longed for a better way. So, out of J.H.’s fruitful imagination came a vision: a car with a duplicate set of taillights that could be removed from their housings in the car’s rear and, via long, extendible wires, be mounted on the rear of the trailer being towed. Conceptually, it’s not a bad idea: Getting your car wired for trailer lights, and making sure the trailer is properly wired as well can be a pain, especially if you find yourself towing a number of different trailers. I guess? Maybe this isn’t exactly a cure for cancer, but it was enough to get this, let’s be honest, most likely-currently-dead person thinking, which in turn got me, a future most likely-currently-dead person thinking. I was thinking about the flaws in J.H.’s plan, which mostly revolve around the amount of wire needed. Would that wire be stored on some kind of spring-loaded reel inside the car’s fenders? Would it just be sort of draped along the sides of the trailer? Would you have to secure it? Would it be likely to get frayed and break? The wires are the Achilles’ heel here, but I think this is one place where modern technology could really make this idea practical. How? Via the magic of rechargeable batteries and Bluetooth! [Editor’s Note: Jason, why are we even doing this exercise? Modern trailers tend to have lights built in, and they hook up to a standard connector that you can easily install into most cars (And you only have to do it once). I’m not sure this is a problem that needs to be solved anymore. -DT] Here’s what I’m thinking: we have two units, a sender and receiver. The receiver is a Bluetooth-equipped LED taillight unit with an integrated USB-rechargeable battery. It mounts via strong magnets to the rear of the trailer or whatever you’re hauling. At the sender end, a small box mounts by each taillight with magnets, and has three wires dangling from it, each terminating in a photocell with a suction mount. One photocell suctions to the main taillight/brake light area, one to the turn indicator, and one to the reverse lamp. When those sections illuminate, the photocells transmit a Bluetooth signal to the receiving light, which illuminates accordingly. [Editor’s Note: Wait, hold on. You’re just sensing the light from the main taillight and then transmitting a signal based on that? You’re not just tapping into the harness? Why are we even considering this? What? Why? Don’t you have other things to write? -DT]. [Writer’s Note: I have no answer here. This same question was going through my head as I did it, too. Why did I write this? I feel like I did it in a fugue state and now I look back on it, baffled. But fuck it, I’m gonna publish it, because I believe in full disclosure. Also, I have a review of the first high volume EV from one of the world’s biggest carmakers I should be writing, but I did this. Jeezis. – JT] Easy! No wiring, no programming, no anything! Just some magnets and suction cups and you’re off! Maybe Mr or Ms.Schmidt is still out there, bitter that trailer lighting is such a shitshow still. If so, I implore them to not give up hope: Better, easier trailer lighting is possible, if we can only find those with the proper will to make it happen. Well, if we’re honest, there are people who are pretty damn close to making it happen, because there are wireless trailer lights in the world already! Look!
Of course, the one difference with these is that they do require the tow vehicle has some provision for trailer lighting to plug the transmitter into, and the suction-cup-photocell approach wouldn’t need even that. Of course, if you have a vehicle with a tow hitch, it’s incredibly unlikely that you wouldn’t have a trailer lighting connector, so, it’s possible my idea is, you know, useless. But, then again, so is trying to figure out how to make someone’s frustrated idea from 54 years ago real, so I guess it all checks out. [Editor’s Note: … -DT]. I ended up with a set of tail lights from a 1980-1986 Ford F-150 FlareSide or step side. They’re small, self-contained, with a integrated reverse lamp and license plate lamp. I’d post a pic, but as has been said, y’all are working on that. Should be easy enough to find an example online. Back in the early 1990s, my brother built a small homemade trailer. It’s in rough condition but the frame is excellent, it’s extremely well built. Basically it needs new decking, tires, wiring and tail lights. All pretty doable. (We’ll also check everything else with the axle, bearings etc, but it rolls well as is.) I thought about using the Ford tail lights, and since trailers don’t have reverse lights, I thought I’d wire in separate turn signals, using the inset reverse lamp housing, with amber bulbs. I’d place them sideways so the “turn signal” would be to one side and not hanging down below or perched above (they fit in the housing better that way anyway). Ford was nice enough to imprint a wiring diagram on the side of the tail light, so it should be easy to send turn signal to the reverse lamp, correct? Is it that easy, or will the brake lamp be affected? I figure you’re crazy enough, in a good way, to appreciate my thought process here. Short version is: absolutely will not affect brakes at all on these lights. Why is this? Well, because these tail lights use a 2-plus-hot (3-wire) setup with two bulbs if I have the right diagram here. The reverse lamp is always pulled to ground via the chassis and receives power from the reverse switch circuit 140. Long version is: wire the stop lamp using the factory weathertight split-2 connectors as you would on the truck. Great. Now either wire the reverse lamp connector to two wires – one power, one ground – install an amber bulb and you’re done. Note that if you want to use LEDs, I recommend properly soldering a 1W resistor SOLIDLY MOUNTED to a heat dissipating surface for each power line. However, I strongly encourage experimenting with resistor values. For my next trick, I’ll teach you how to wire European spec Grand Cherokee WK tail lights (which have 3 bulbs) into a US cost-reduced WK (which has 2 bulbs because that was clearly cheaper than having two totally fucking different sets of tooling.) Step 1: you’re going to need a bottle of hard liquor… https://24hoursoflemons.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/IOE_Saabs_Gone_Wild.jpg but I’d rather stick with (so to speak) the wired variety so the wiring can serve as a last-ditch backup to keep a light from flying away if a magnet slips. You’re nuts.
- Given what a hoarder he is, he probably still has it tucked away somewhere. One feature I really liked was the Model Garage-a short story each month giving symptoms of an automotive malady, and how Gus Wilson figured it out. There’s actually a LOT of good info in there—especially into the ‘60s & ‘70s about various make’s ways of dealing with pollution controls and the ways they can fail. Plus, it was kinda smug fun reading about patching tires & scraping carbon from cylinder heads Watching the articles-and especially the ads-change over the decades was pretty neat
