hi All,

I have a quick question regarding hooking up a trailer light on my 99 ford explorer xlt.

I'm planning on using some universal kit to hook it up myself, I found one on trailerwiring.com. That one has a dedicated positive-power cable that has to be run from the battery, to the back.

If I use a generic one with splice-connectors in the rearlights, would that still work or would the splice kind dim my car-lights when i turn the trailer on, i.e. take the power from the car's lights?? I'm just wondering, since I've seen other people hook it up ike that, just spliced the lights and the turn signals and it's work, why not on my car?

Thanks!

 

Welcome to FTE!!

Try Northern or WalMart and look for a trailer wire adapter. It is a T plug that goes in between your factory wiring harness on the rear and it has all the plugs for a 4-pin trailer harness on it. It is the easiest way to get lights. Beats trying to splice into your wiring...

 

Many Explorers have a connector behind the left taillight accessed from under the truck that has all the wires necessary for trailer lights.

 

And Mine had the pigtail in a bag inside the jack compartment.........someone that works for ford told me some came that way.............(worth a look and save some $).....just had to pull the Orange dust cap from the socket (like prev. guy said) and plug it in...........

 

Because the explorer has seperate brake and turn signal lights you need the proper wiring kit. Reese makes a good one that just plugs into the connectors in the tail lights and is relatively easy to install. The only thing is that with this kit you have to run a wire from the battery to the distrubution box that comes with the kit.

I installed this kit the day after I got my explorer and it took about an hour and a half. Running the wire to the battery took the most time mainly because I was doing it in the dark with a flashlight

 

Why.............Mine plugged right in the r/r and everything works........It's a six prong plug but you only use 4 + ground.
(right,left,brake/flasher,parking + the ground)

 

Hawker may be trying to hook up a seven-pin RV connector instead of the four-pin you guys are talking about. The four-pin connector is a straight plug-in to the wiring harness, as you guys have noted, but the seven-pin has three additional poles, one for electric brakes, one for an auxiliary connection, and one for charging the battery system, like on a camper.

I don't have my color schematics with me but I remember the charging system wire on my seven-pin connector is black.

This black wire connection is optional and does not have to be hooked up unless you want to be able to run the 12V refrigerator on the camper or recharge the battery system while you're pulling it, as the battery system on the camper recharges once you hook it up to 120V at the campsite.

A wire, I used 10 gauge, is to be run from the 7-pin connector along the Explorer's chassis, up to the battery connections at the "fuse box" area under the hood on the driver's side. Open the plastic lid to expose the battery connections on the engine side of the fuse box, one of which is unswitched and connects directly to the battery, and the other is switched and is only hot when the Explorer's ignition switch is in the "on" position. You want to connect the black wire to the switched connection using an in-line fuse, I think I used a 10 amp fuse. Again, this connection is optional and not necessary unless you want the ability to run the fridge or charge the camper battery, like I did in my case.

I wish Ford had equipped the Explorers that have the tow package with standard seven-pin connector instead of the dinky four-pin connector. Most people I know that have the Explorer with the tow package use them to pull campers, most of which use the seven-pin connector. It's a lot easier to convert from the four-pin to the seven-pin, than vice-versa, but it saved Ford $2 worth of wire. (OK, I'll get off the soapbox now).

 

"If I use a generic one with splice-connectors in the rearlights, would that still work or would the splice kind dim my car-lights when i turn the trailer on, i.e. take the power from the car's lights?? I'm just wondering, since I've seen other people hook it up ike that, just spliced the lights and the turn signals and it's work, why not on my car?"

No, don't splice the hot wire from a seven-pin connector into the rear lights! Yes, it probably dim them and could cause other problems like an overloaded lighting circuit. The hot wire needs to be hooked up as per my previous post.

 

I don't know why. I'm an electronics technologist and the reason for this mistified me. The adapter box should be able to work without power supplied from the battery. Maybe it's needed for the circuit protecition provided in the kit I bought.

 

Maybe Like RJR was saying (elec. brakes or accs. or something) I wasn't even thinking along them lines when i posted.........I only haul an alum bass boat (not sure I would tow anything that needed elec. brakes with a v-6)...........I also think if your gonna put a hitch ball or a hole to install one on a truck.....ya should have the wiring included also (sure ford saves a bundle). I went to ford and they wanted like $31.00 for the pigtail.......that's when my friend told me to look in the jack compartment......and sure enough it was in there with a mounting bracket and everything

 

I sent an email to Hopkins Mfg Co (Hoppy), the company that makes the wiring harnesses and asked them why there is a wire that must be run back to the battery. It was not the seven-pin hot wire reason as I first posted but something altogether different. Here's the deal from Shawn at Hoppy Tech Services:

"The best way to explain this is that the vehicle has a sensor in the back called a lamp out module. This module controls all the power going to the tail lights. If you tap into this system with a regular harness, you will short out the module and spend around $600.00 to replace the module because you would need to take it to the dealership to have it replaced. When you use our power converters and run the power wire directly to the battery, this bypasses the vehicles electrical system and pulls all the power for the trailer lights directly from the battery.

If your Explorer has a factory tow package, there is a kit that is a
lot cheaper and easier to hook up to the vehicle. If you have a towing package, there will be a plug that dead ends under the vehicle on the drivers side right behind the bumper with a red or gray dust cover in it. You can then use part number 40915. You will not need to use the power converter because this harness is not ran through the lamp out module.

Shawn Rumold
Technical Service Rep
Hopkins Manufacturing
428 Peyton Street
Emporia, KS 66801
1-800-835-0129 ext. 8471
Fax 1-800-444-6779

 

That makes sense............

 

Ok....now I understand.

 

Thanks guys!

A lot of great replies! I went to my local wally-world and looked for a wiring kit but they didn't have the one for the 99-explorer model, unfortunately there wasn't anything else in the jack compartment either...

I'll just have to go and order one of those kits from the net somewhere.

btw It'll just be good enouh to have a 4 wire flat connector i tow a 21 feet skiboat, but only for a few miles at a time. So far i've been getting by with no lights at all......... i figured it was time to be a little safer..LOL

Thanks a bunch,

M

 

hey guys!

I am just done with hooking up my trailerwiring. Offcourse I bought one of those kits with some kind of signalconverter in it and I had to draw a positive wire from the battery all the way to the back, sounds easier than it is!!

After I did that and I opened up the taillights, I saw somekind of dead-plug, on both sides. Now I know from some other cars that have kits that you can plug into those plugs and you are done....

Guess I got screwed, I had no idea that those plugs were there, everybody that I asked about wiring didn't mention THEM..

Oh well, it's hooked up now anyway.