My 1995 F150 does not have a trailer tow package and I now have a 16 ft flat trailer with electric brakes on 2 axles that I plan to tow small antique tractors with. Problem is how to wire in my controller. I understand it needs connections to stoplite swith, +12v source, -Ground, and Brakes. Where can I find the places to make the connections. The wires to the stoplite switch are hard to access and stretched tight. Also the taillights need to be wired to the harness and they are also hard to access and stretched tight. Is there a wiring harness I can get from Ford to make life easier or how do the trailer firms accomplish this. If I could figure out how to access the wires, I could easily solder in splices and have the knowledge and tools for that.
Also if I splice onto the existing tail light wires, will they be large enough to handle the added load. Also I need to wire in a 20amp circuit breaker ahead of the +12v feed to the controller unless there is already a circuit I could hook onto.
Can anybody help me out and talk me through this that has already done it?

 

When you purchase your brake controller it should have instructions on how to properly install it. Mine did anyhow for my 88 F-150.

Do not splice your taillight harness for trailer lights!!!!!!!!!!

Just go to Wal-Mart and purchase the trailer wiring harness specified for your truck. Unplug your taillight harness, plug the trailer harness into the main wiring harness & then plug your tailight harness into the trailer harness.

 

You can wire the brake controller to the plug that is hanging under the dash in the center of the truck that has the blue wire going to it. The blue wire is for the trailer brake control. There is also a 12v+, ground, and wire from the brake light switch on that plug. I for get what the colors are.

You can buy the other end of that plug with a pigtail that you wire to your brake controller at most trailer supply shops or go to www.etrailer.com and look in the wiring section or brake controller section. Cost about 10 bucks. Get one for a '94-up, as the '92-'93 trucks use a different shape plug. There are probably a few plugs hanging down there. You may have to spend some time looking and following the wires to see which one goes to the brake light switch, but I don't remember there being more than one heavy blue wire down there so that should help.

Since you apparently don't have the Tow Package, the rest of the brake control wiring, and trailer battery charge wire, if you want it, will need to be run from the under-hood fues box on the driver's side fenderwell by the brake master cylinder to the back of the truck. The underhood fuse box has locations for the relays and fuses that control the trailer brakes, battery charge, and trailer lights. There should be wires going to those locations and you will have to connect the wires comming from those locations. You won't need the trailer lights portion of it if you go with the T-connector at the back of the truck. All this will need to terminate in either a 6-way or 7-way plug at your rear bumper.

The wiring connector Parks911 talked about is called a T-One connector and is available also at most autoparts stores and trailer supply shops as well as Etrailer. The T-connector will have a 4-flat trailer connector on the end of it. You can purchase a 6 or 7 way round trailer plug that will accept this 4-flat plug on the backside of it and then use the other wires hanging out the backside of it to connect your trailer brake (blue), and battery charge (red or yellow) wires to. Connect the white wire to the truck frame for trailer ground.

 

A friend gave me the connector that goes to the one under the dash for the controller, he had a 1996 Ford truck and used another setup. He also gave me the male and female plugs to attach to the bumper. Sounds like all I need is the "T" connector to get into the brake lights and run wires from it to the bumper female plug. I also will need to run the Blue wire from the controller all the way back to the bumper female plug because I do not have the trailer tow package on my truck. But I will look for a blue wire that might already be there as you said. Thanks again guys, now I will be able to haul my antique tractors maybe!!

 

CCRider, the blue wire should be there under the dash. It goes from that plug your friend gave you the other side for, to the under-hood fuse box. It goes to a relay or fuse location there. Pick up a Haynes manual at your local autoparts store. Listed there in the manual are all the locations and what they are for, as well as what value of fuses and relays to put in the sockets.

 

According to my wiring diagram from Ford, the blue wire runs from the under dash connector directly to the plug-in at the rear of the truck and does not go to the fuse box. Since I don't have the tow package, I don't think I have a blue wire running to the rear of the truck directly. I assume I will have to run one from the controller directly back to the rear of the truck to the plug-in. I will look again for any sign of a blue wire at the rear of the truck. I thought the only fused wire was the red feed wire from the fuse box to the connector thru to the controller. The Ford diagram shows the red feed wire to be fused at 30a where my Voyager controller specifies a 20a automatic reset circuit breaker. I guess I could put the circuit breaker inline from the connector to the controller and have the feed essentially protected by both a 30a fuse and a 20a circuit breaker....seems redundant to me.
Your speaking of running wire from the fuse box to anywhere makes me wonder how do you physically do that. I am not familiar with these fuse/relay box connections. Is there a convenient place to hook wiring onto circuits there?

 

CCRider, you are right about the blue brake wire not going through the underhood fuse box. I was wrong, I should have checked the diagram instead of trusting my memory. I was thinking of the battery charge and trailer running/backup light wires that are fused/relayed through the underhood fuse box. My appologies for the misinformation.

You can put a 20 amp fuse in the 30 amp fuse location for the controller if your Voyager requires less amperage, provided there isn't something else connected to that fuse that requires 30 amps (my diagram doesn't show anything else on that circuit). It is safe to go down in amperage on fuses, but not up.

There are no 'convenient' aux connect locations on that box accessed from above, the wires come in and out from the underside of the box. Wire connectors hook into the underside of the fuse/relay ports. You can see which ports have wires connected to them by looking down into the port from above. The unused trailer ports will have connectors on the 'in' side of the circuit and be empty on the 'out' side.

 

Hi...Thanks for the update, I am getting pretty well informed as to how to connect the trailer Plug-in. All I need to do is do it! I would like to splice the 3 wires I need to work the tail lights but I guess the T harness is the right way to go, I just hated to spend the $20 for the sake of splicing 3 wires but they are so difficult to access that I better forget about it. My 1995 F150 only has 24000 miles on it and I don't want to screw anything up anyway. I will not be using the trailer much but I have 25 antique tractors I will be hauling some of them occasionally. I will paint the trailer I got next, I already painted the wheels and serviced the brakes, etc. Then I will need to get the right "drop" on my receiver hitch. I guess I will load on a tractor and decide which to get. Finally I need to learn where to put the load on the trailer to get it to tow. I plan to measure the drop of my truck hitch in inches to get an idea of the tongue load which is supposed to be 10-15 % of the load.
Thanks again for your help, you seem to be a regular guru on this site and that is good.

 

Wow, a '95 with only 24K miles on it... Sweet! ...And I thought I had a low mileage truck: '92 with 45K miles...

Hope the wiring all goes well for you too (It's real easy with the T-connector).

On the trailer loading, you'll want to position the tractor over, and just ahead of, the trailer axles, so the trailer takes most of the load, but the truck takes 10-15% on the hitch, like you said. Maybe load the engine-end of the tractor over the trailer axles and the lighter end ahead of the trailer axles.

A good place to start with the ballmount drop length is pick one that will put the trailer about 2-3" above level at the coupler when the trailer is empty. That way, when the trailer is loaded it will drop the rear end of the truck down to around level or slightly below, depending on how stiff your truck's rear suspension is and how heavy the tongue weight. Idealy, you want the trailer to tow level or slightly nose-down, but not nose-up, when loaded.

Do you have any pictures of the tractors? Would be interesting to see them. Good luck with the towing!

 

If your '95 150 does NOT have factory tow pkg., the blue wire from the under dash connector terminates in the interior side of the firewall connector- not much use.
The connector does have feed from brake pedal switch, 12v key switched, and running lights. I can check wire color codes if you need them. I ended up installing a bulkhead connector to feed a 12 ga. "blue" wire back to the hitch connector. If you are determined, this can be run with the factory harness underneath.
My '95 doesn't have power windows, so I used that slot in the fuse panel to (25A) power the trailer brakes.
The "T" adaptor for lights is the only way to go.
Let me know if you need more details.