It was time to check out the trailer wiring on the truck. I knew from an experience a month or so ago, that the current wiring (6-way round plug) wasn't working as it should. Not a big deal, I was towing an empty 2 wheel utility trailer, and my truck taillights were visible, so perfectly legal. But... coming up here soon, I'm going to need this truck to pull my boat to or from the lake (not put the boat in the water though... I know that would be a $h!t show with this truck, and my boat).
Time to take a look. I assumed the wiring would be jacked up, see previous posts with anything involving the truck wiring. I purchased the truck side wiring for a 7-way round, and 4-way flat plug. This gives me options to tow anything I would want/need to with this truck. There is already a brake controller on this truck, and it appears to be wired correctly (surprisingly). As you can see, the current wiring was a mess. After unwinding that rats nest, I determined which wires did what, and what was available for me to use for the new plugs. Pretty straightforward if you've done this before. Oh, and just in case this brake controller doesn't work to my standards, I do have a nice Prodigy that I used a few years ago, just sitting on a shelf.
After a little time cleaning some things up, it looks a lot better. I'm going to pull a trailer a few times before I go under here and clean things up a little better. I did make sure to remove all the ground connections down here, clean up the frame, sand down to nice bare metal, then attach the new ground ends, and paint them with some fresh frame black. The connections all have a nice coating of dielectric grease on them as well, and I drilled a drain hole in the receiver end of this aftermarket REESE hitch. Inside that sleeve was dirty, and full of surface rust. The drain hole should help with that going forward.
The only kink in this entire process was that per my meter test, I was showing a constant 12V from both the RED/ORANGE 12ga. wire and the BLUE 12ga. wire coming from under the hood / brake controller. I thought the BLUE wire should only have 12V once the brake pedal was depressed, or the slide button on the actual brake controller. I may have remembered that incorrectly though, and I'll know soon enough when I test pull a couple of trailers later this week.
