electric trailer brake controller: specific wiring instructions?

[e9999]

grrrr...., that search engine sucks... needless to say I was unsuccessful

anyway, does anybody know where to find 80-specific wiring instructions for the electric brake controller for a trailer, like what harness to plug into, where, where to rout the wires, etc... ?

thanks much
Eric

 

[cruiserdan]

You are on your own there. Toyota does not endorse trailer brake controllers of any type for this vehicle. You may check with a local RV dealer, the bigger the better.

 

[landtank]

Put one on my fathers Tundra. Pretty straight forward. That however was an install on a NON ABS truck.

 

[scottm]

Do you need general how to wire a brake controller or specific where to tap into the brake-light wire, or both?

 

[e9999]

Scott:
I am hoping that somebody would have posted (or will) instructions on how to tie in the controller to the electric system of the 80, such as "best place to tap into stoplight signal is in connector XY wire 5 to be found under panel Z, whereas you can get power into relay ABC which is next to... and run the wire through the hole in the firewall behind... etc". IOW, tricks and experienced observations on the best way to do it without reiventing the wheel.
thanks
Eric

 

[alia176]

Eric,

Here's my .02 cents worth......

I just installed the seven pin trailer plug (already had the hole cut out of the bumper). At the same time I installed a Hoppy trailer harness, specifically for a LX450 or FZJ80. That was a simple plug and play...just follow the good instructions. This trailer brake kit comes with the in cab controller which has specific instructions on how to hook all this up. The brake to your trailer is controlled by three wires coming from the in cab controller. Typically the heavy gauge blue wire is the "electric brake" wire signal coming from the contoller. This signal is variable based on your adjustment and comes on when it detects the driver stepping on the brake. This brake detection usually comes from your brake light or sometime taps off of your existing pedal switch.

The seven prong plug that's on the rear bumper has room for the wiring coming from your trailer harness (in my case, Hoppy) plus three more wires coming from the controller. I haven't hookd up my trailer controller yet but I'd guess the three wires to be: brake signal from the controller, batt positive and ground.

Once you hooked everything up, you'll need to adjust the BIAS to the trailer brake by sliding a knob (variable resistor). This is dependant on trailer weight, load centering, etc.. Ideally, you want to set the whole thing up so that you can simply use the 4 pin plug from the Hoppy unit for small trailer or use the 7 pin plug for heavy trailer. Check out the Hoppy website for more info.

Hope I didin't confuse you!

Ali

 

[e9999]

Hi Ali:
thanks for the info. I already have a 4 pin trailer connector, actually. The rear end is easy. I'm more interested in knowing where and how easily to dig in the dash. I'll probably go with a fairly high end solid state controller.
thanks
Eric

 

[scottm]

I needed power for the controller, and a brake control wire from the controller back to the trailer plug. I also needed power back to the plug to keep the trailer battery charged, and to power trailer accessories. The other two wires on my controller were ground and brake sensing. I wanted power to the back of my truck for accessories anyway, so I started with a 50 amp marine breaker from West Marine, attached at the battery. Big fuses are less versatile and more $ at stereo shops. From the breaker I ran 10 guage wire through a rubber plug in the firewall, where the clutch actuator would go if I had one. I terminated under the dash with a ring connector, where inline fuses run to a few new accessories including the brake controller. Another 10 guage wire runs from there to the jack stowage compartment. I used the ground under the center console, I prefer factory grounds. I tapped into the brake wire after the switch on the brake pedal for my brake sensor wire.

Running all the wires back is fairly easy. Under the door sills is a deep channel with some wiring already in it. I ran my 10, 12, and four smaller wires with room to spare. One of those wires is from my accessory power, it runs a relay to the trailer power so it's only connected to my battery when accessory power is on. The others are for accessories. I'm running a plug-n-play four-prong trailer light plug by Draw-Tite, and a seven-pin adaptor.

 

[scottm]

Mounting it

 

[Brentbba]

E,

Wish I could help with the wiring, but I had a local RV shop do my install. I can, however, highly recommend the Tekonsha Prodigy electronic brake controller. I did my research and ended up with this one. I had it mounted under the dash just to the left of the center console. I'll try to take a pic and post for you. As I remember it ran me about $115 a couple of years ago. Prices may have dropped a little. A basic internet search will yield savings.

 

[Scamper]

Eric,

Since you already have the four-wire connector (that probably came with the receiver hitch kit), you really only need to run the brake control wires. Like Brent, I located my controller under the fuse panel. The easiest place to tap into the brake circuit IMO is the brake switch just behind the brake pedal. You can't miss it, and it's easy to remove so you can get access to the wires. There is no harness to tap, just the wires from the switch. I spliced into that circuit and it worked fine. The only problem is that the wires are pretty short, and they are pretty fine guage, so I spliced in a length of wire and then tied that into the controller with some pigtale connectors so that I never need to play with it again if I should get a new controller.

Other than that, IIRC, you just run back a positive and ground lead from the battery to the controller and then back to the plug on the bumper. You can use the rubber grommet on the firewall to pass these wires thru to the cab. You need to run a reasonably large gauge wire for the positive lead (used for charging the trailer battery and for braking power) since that can draw a lot of current. IMO 10G may be too small; I would go to something like an 8G at least. I ran mine along the side of the frame and just wire-tied them all up nice and snug every six inches or so.

Tom

 

[Brentbba]

Eric,

Here's where I have my Prodigy mounted.

 

[Scamper]

Hahaha...I guess that was my other left (thought Brent meant left as in under the fuse box). Anyhow, I don't have any room under my center console to mount a controller which is why I used the fuse box location. I guess the 94's had a gap between the dash and the console that doesn't exist on the 97.

 

[e9999]

man, that prodigy looks like an alien affair...

so we really have to draw a wire all the way from the battery eh? cigarette lighter not OK by any chance? that's close

E

 

[Scamper]

The cig lighter circuit is not rated high enough for what you'll want (they ain't what they used to be in the days of yore). It's not at all hard to run a wire from the battery.

 

[Brentbba]

Go to the battery! My install did.