wiring for flat tow: 1973 FJ40

[slickrock]

I need to wire my rig for flat towing behind my tow rig. Just a thought instead of using those magnet mounted tow lights. Can I just hard wire into my rear brake and running lights from my tow rig's electrical pig connector? Or will that cause a short or something?
Thanks, Dan

 

[Corbet]

Since most of the 40's switches are on the ground side from memory it will probably be too big of PITA over the simple magnetic tow lights.

 

[Living in the Past]

I wired my 68 to have the plug wired all the time. I spliced in the wiring harness on the firewall on the passenger's side. There is a plug there for the wiring harness to the tail lights. It was in the early nineties when I did this but I think I used a triple pole double throw switch. If I had to do it over I would just find a extra plug that matched the wirng harness going to the tail light lights. Then you could just unplug from the main wiring harness at the firewall and plug in the trailer light harness. You would still need a good ground between the two vehicles but if your tail lights are working with the ground at the lights this should work great. I going to try this since the tail lights on the FJ25s and FJ40s were the dual element single bulb up thru the 73 model. Should work on most my old cruisers if they didn't change the plug over the years.

PS The switches are on the positive side with the ground being at the lights. That's why so many have problems with their lights is because of poor ground to the frame.

John

 

[slickrock]

That sounds like a plan or I can run a diode (sp?) so that power only runs one way so I will not fry the fuses. Thanks for the replies.

 

[alf]

If you have a trailer wiring harness already on the vehicle you wish to flat tow simply wire in a trailer side plug with really long extensions to the vehicle side of the trailer wiring harness (u know the trailer harness will have on side that says trailer and one side that says vehcile). Then just plug this into your tow vehicle and your done. There will be 12v that back feeds up into your towed vehicle but I t dont' see this being a problem.