Hi everyone, I just got a Tekonsha Voyager trailer brake controller. It came with a Ford harness, which I plugged into the harness under the dash in my truck. Oh, it's a 1995, has tow hitch, etc.

Here's my question: How do I check my wiring at the hitch to make sure everything works as it should? I don't have a trailer (yet), and only the flat 4-pin plug at the hitch. I'm planning on getting an adapter so I can have both the 4-pin and the 7-pin back there. Current ones back there are green, yellow, black and white. I didn't see blue, orange or brown, but couldn't get a good look since it was getting dark.

So I went up to the wiring harness under my dash to see what wires were there. Here's a pic of that:



So do I need to run wire from the harness? Or do I have what I need already and just missed it in the back? I don't have a wiring diagram on me, so I don't know which of these translate into which wires in the back. The dealer I bought it from said it used to have a trailer brake installed and I was just assuming that was the case, but now I'm not so sure. Or is it safe to assume the wiring is there somewhere since I have the harness under the dash?

 

If I am correct, trailer brakes run through a pigtail in the rear....

Some of the 6-7 blade pigtails have trailer brakes included....

The 4 pin pigtail should be wired to:
Left Blinker
Right Blinker
Taillights
Ground


Hope this helps....

 

You can not get trailer brakes from a 4 pin flat plug. There is no adapter that can help you with brakes from the 4 wire plug.
It only has the Marker lamps (brown wire), Ground maybe (white wire), left turn lamps (yellow wire) & right turn lamps (green wire).

If the truck did not have the towing package from the factory (Trailer/Camper Adapter) then the blue wire (brakes) in your photo will stop at the safety wall. You would then have to put a pin in the plug on the engine side and run the blue wire to a trailer plug on the rear.








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Subford, you were right. I knew that there was no way to adapt a 4-pin into a 7, but I had hoped that all the wiring was run to/from the harness and back to the back, and that I just needed to know where it was so I could tap it. No dice.

I looked again at the 4-pin, and realized that it wasn't factory. Looks like PO just tapped existing wiring back there. I started following the harness to see where on the firewall it terminates, but I lost track of it under the dash.

So I stopped by a trailer place today, explained what I did so far and asked the guy to give me an idea for what it might need. He found that there was no wiring in the back, nor farther up the frame. He didn't know where the harness under the dash terminated, but noted that there was no power going to my brake controller.

In the end, it's pretty much a full install. I need to have power run to the brake controller, then wire run from there to the back. The guy said they typically charge about $250, and most all but $20 is labor. Mine might be more even because they need to splice in after the harness.

Yay. I'm thinking to look into doing the install myself. Your diagram helps with what relays / fuses I'll need, and I've run wire before. Ho hum. I was hoping to avoid all this

 

one you are probally missing the relay that provides power, there is 2 rather large connectors underneath the truck on the lh frame rail , the ford setup is a plug n play , ALL of the 95-96 were prewired for this arangement . you need to see about a factory style harness for your aplication, the dude you were talking to wants to spend your money

edit- i was wrong, only 1996 were all equiped

 

You should have power to the plug for the brake controller at the plug under the ash tray. You might need to replace the fuse but that is all.
AS I said above the blue wire from the that plug stops at the safety wall as in the photos below (pin #2).

The pin #2 is missing on the plug on the engine side.


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Thanks for the feedback, guys. I appreciate that. I'll check fuses and relays under the hood and in the cab. So, subford, is that the plug in the firewall that's pretty much right in front of where the driver sits? I'll check then when I get home tonight.

I'm thinking that if I find I'm missing harnesses or wiring beyond that a blue and/or orange one, I'll make a trip to the junk yard and pull one there.

 

Oh, I see you did exactly what I'm planning on doing:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/9...ug-wiring.html

I searched before! Honestly, I did!

 

Yes that is where it is. Mine was missing a the pin there also so I just put a pin in the plug and ran the blue wire to the back bumper.

Well that is not exactly what I did. I went to a salvage yard and got the small relay box and the harness that runs down the drivers frame to the rear bumper. Than I replace my harness.
You do not have to do any rewiring in the cab other than putting a plug on your controller.
If you want a complete diagram just email me and I will email it to you. If I post it on here it is too small to read.
My email address is at the bottom of this post.

 

Update: I went to my favorite local junk yard and got everything from the zillion-pin harness all the way back to the two round plugs in the back. Some of the wiring from the yard that went to the taillights and elsewhere had already been cut off. I didn't want to splice or tap into my current wiring, so I pulled just the 6-7 wires for the two plugs, popped the pins into my current harness and ran them parallel along the frame to the back.

So now I have the two round plugs back there. Yay. And thanks, subford, your diagrams and pics, etc. made it a whole lot easier. I still need to test to make sure everything works as it should, but I'm not too worried about that.

SO. Now I just need to find an adapter to go from those two plugs in the back. I've seen a 4-pin like this:
Ford Trailer Wiring Kits - 1995-2000 Ford Explorer (with factory tow package) Trailer Wiring Kit

But no 7-way. I want to have both the flat, 4-pin and the 7-way. I haven't seen any so far, but I'm still looking. the 4-pin that PO is a mess with wire taps, etc. I'm thinking to just cut all that out.

Now that I think about it, I saw some other trucks at the junk yard where the two plugs went into a... is it a 6-pin plug? Should I have pulled one of those while I was there?

 

I would say yes get the six pin with the plugs at the salvage yard.
Then you can use either the 6 pin or cut the six pin plug off and wire in a 7 pin.
All of my trailers, Dinghies and my Dolly use the six pin so all of my trucks and my RV's have the six pin sockets. I have not ran into a 7 pin plug yet although I did make a six to 7 pin adapter that I take when I go to look at a trailer or something else to pull.

 

Darn. Went to the junk yard and none of the trucks there had the right wiring for the 6-pin. I want to find the short wiring harness that goes from those two round pigtails I pulled last week into a 6-pin plug, but no luck. I did find a 6-pin to 7-way adapter, so I grabbed that at least.

Guess I'll have to splice into the wiring I pulled last week. I've done it before and am fine with it, but really hoped to just plug and play. A lot cleaner that way.