7pin RV Blade Trailer Wiring

[baggar11]

Hey Guys,

Just picked up a little travel trailer for the family and have about a week or two before pickup to sort out the trailer wiring. Currently, the stock wiring has a 6 pin round connector. And from what I can see, without having time to poke around too much, goes up into the rear passenger area underneath the truck.

Since I'll need to get a brake controller installed, what's my best bet for wiring up the brake controller and a 7pin RV blade style connector?

I plan on grabbing a Tekonsha P3 controller. I've seen a couple posts on the Hopkins wiring kit, but am unsure if that would allow me to run the 7pin RV blade connector. Do I go nuclear and just run new wire trailer wiring from the brake controller back. In some regard, since I don't have the brake controller in hand yet, I'm a little unsure on what's even needed to get it wired in.

Any guidance would be appreciated! Thanks!

 

[alia176]

Hey man,

Hopefully I"m not too late but this is what I did for my 80:

1) buy the Hopkins harness made for our 80/LX450. May not be avail in your town so maybe Amazon? Seriously, it's truly PnP. No cutting/slicing, just plug in their connector between your factory connections. Totally worth the money. 1996 Toyota Land Cruiser Custom Fit Vehicle Wiring - Tekonsha

2) install a 7pin RV plug with the blades some where back there. Ideally, if you cut a hole and then insert into rear cross member so that it's not affected by wheeling, that'd be ideal. But you can do all this after your trip.

3) Run a large Blue 10gauge wire for trailer brake from your Tekonsha unit to the 7pin. This will be in the brake controller instructions.

4) Run a fused power supply from your battery to the 7pin. You may want to put this on a IGN controlled relay but I wired mine directly. This way, I have 12vdc power at the plug for the times my trailer battery is low and needs a little help kicking on the heater on cold mornings.

5) I'm a huge fan of the Tekonsha Prodigy series of controllers. The awesome thing is that they come with brackets that allows you to move the unit between tow rigs to save a little $$. Go to Etrailers.com to see how to wire them up if you are curious about it before receiving the controller package in the mail. Wiring of these units are very straight forward. 1996 Toyota Land Cruiser Brake Controller | etrailer.com

6) My controller is mounted on the right side under dash area, in front of my right knee. I can look down and adjust the voltage amount as necessary. I tried mounting it inside the ashtray and thought it looked cheesy and half assed so I moved it back to the right knee area.

7) Going on memory, there are only two wires that run between the controller and the 7pin

8) The Hopkins harness will come with a 4 pin connector, flat style. I cut this off, separated the wires and plugged them into the back of the 7 pin. Wire count: 4 wires from Hopkins harness + 2 wires from controller + 1 optional wire from your main battery for CHG of the trailer battery. = 7 wires = 7 pin.

HTH.

Ali

 

[baggar11]

@alia176 Awesome, that helps a lot! Thanks!

So it sounds like I can use the Hopkins kit. It only supplies 5 of the wires needed to complete a 7 pin connector. I think I can figure that out. Are you sure you'd run 10 gauge? Seems pretty hefty.

EDIT: I'm seeing that 10 gauge blue is commonly used for controller to trailer brake signal wire.

 

[baggar11]

@alia176 Actually, another question. Since I already have that 6 pin plug in the back, do you think I even need the Hopkins kit? Shouldn't I be able to do the same thing that you're talking about, where I snip that plug off and wire it directly to a new RV 7pin? And then run whatever remaining wires I need for the controller back?

 

[alia176]

You're correct, since you already have the 6 pin plug, the wires are already there. Just remove the 6 pin round and swap it out with 7 pin blade. I don't know the state of the trailer wiring in the cargo area and if it was with a proper harness or just hacked, which is what most folks do.

I can't recall of the wire gauge, maybe it was 12 gauge? I do know that it needs to be a hefty gauge wire and Etrailer will have that info, along with your controller instruction kit.

 

[shelfboy1]

12 gage is heavy wire good for 20 amps make sure you use stranded solid wire will break over time

 

[baggar11]

Thanks guys. I have the P3 controller, 7 pin mounting bracket, 7 pin connector and 25ft of blue 10 gauge wire on the way. I'll try to post up some info after i get it all sorted out and installed.

 

[alia176]

Thanks guys. I have the P3 controller, 7 pin mounting bracket, 7 pin connector and 25ft of blue 10 gauge wire on the way. I'll try to post up some info after i get it all sorted out and installed.

Also, make sure of the gauge of wire for POS & NEG from batt to your controller. That one might be a heavy gauge too since the brake power goes through them.

 

[baggar11]

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like my controller arrives tomorrow.

Also, make sure of the gauge of wire for POS & NEG from batt to your controller. That one might be a heavy gauge too since the brake power goes through them.

 

[mingles]

The pic in the thread below shows where to tap into for the brake signal. It was very helpful when I did mine.

Brake Controller Install?

 

[baggar11]

Got the Tekonsha all wired in and planning on picking up the travel trailer this evening. Here's what I did.

Tapped into the green/white wire behind the drivers side lower kick panel. Easy to test and easy to tap. Here's a couple pictures that give a clear view of the harness to tap into.

In line between the positive battery terminal and the Tekonsha controller, I used one of these 30 amp circuit breakers as recommended.

Here's the Trailer harness I ended up ordering. I realized after the fact it wasn't the right one but had all the wires necessary to make it work. What I ended up doing was snipping off the pre-existing 6 pin harness, using my multi-meter to find which wires controlled what. And then snipped off the 4-wire on the new harness. Soldered them together and used heat shrink to protect them a bit.

I opted not to wire the power pin to the harness quite yet. I already have a 1 gauge with a winch quick connect mounted at the rear, so I'll probably use that to feed more power to the trailer. I opted to run the blue brake controller wire underneath the truck, up along the frame rail, into the engine bay and then through the firewall to the brake controller.

Once I had all that stuff connected, the controller fired right up. It says it's supplying voltage to the trailer brakes and I tested the left/right/brake/parking lights on my utility trailer. Finger crossed, I'm all set for tonight.