Hey guys I have a problem with a brand new 16' lowboy. I have pulled the trailer only one time with no problems at all.Today I hooked up to it and lights work, put the truck in drive and the electric brakes are engaged. I can pull the trailer but can feel the drag on it,I unplugged the wire harness and felt the brakes release. I tried it over and over again and it keeps engaging the rear brakes. Any and all replys or ideas would be very much appreciated.

 

Do You Have A Break Away Switch Installed? I Would Ck To Make Sure You Dont Have A Short To Power For The Brake Circuit Either In Your Truck Or Trailer. Hope It Helps

 

All I have is a 2002 stock ford Powerstroke seven pin that I have a plug for the trailers 5 pin. Standard bulldog hitch and pipe lowboy trailer nothing special about it except it has electric brakes.

 

It sounds like you have an adapter between the truck's 7-pin connector and the trailer's connector. If so, the adapter is miswired and is applying power to the electric brakes whenever the ingnition switch is on.

Some adapters can be rewired to fix this problem. If the adapter can't be rewired, you will need to get a 7-pin plug for the trailer and wire it properly to match your truck.

Lou Braun

 

Thanks guys for the help and Lou your probably right the adapter i have, i bought at Wal-mart it's probably just junk. I'll take it down to the truck and trailer place in the morning and see if they can figure it out or maybe have a better adapter.

 

I think you'd be better off just changing the plug on the trailer. Usually they have manuals to tell you what each wire does on the trailer, and the truck has a little diagram of what each pin does right on the flip-up cover.

 

Hey guys, just thought i would update. This morning i went out to the trailer and started looking at the wiring. Then i went online to get a diagram of the wiring and low and behold there it was bigger than Christmas, the ground wire and the wire for the brakes were in their wrong place I switched them and tried to move the trailer and sure enough that was the problem. They do their job now...i.e.(off the brake trailer rolls / on the brake trailer stops). But hey I do thank you for all the quick responses. Hope I can help someone out one day from this headache. Thanks..

 

TUFF -

If you have a 5-pin plug on your trailer (Post 4) you're one wire short for electric brakes, no matter what adapter you use. 5-pin plugs are normally used with a lock-out solenoid for surge brakes.

Steve

 

Yeah hey sorry for the mistake it is a 6 pin but only 5 are hooked up, the 6th wire is for 12volt usage for rv trailers or horse trailers(it's the center pin ). It's not needed on the trailer i have. But hey...thanks for the input.

 

TUFF -

If you have a breakaway system installed on that trailer (hopefully, you do), you can use that 12v pin to keep the battery charged.

Steve

 

Just about all you'll ever need for trailer wiring at: http://www.etrailer.com/faq/wiring.asp

 

Just for everyone's knowledge, I recently wired my truck for towing - put in a brake controller, hard wired 7 and 4 pin connectors using the factory wires provided. I needed to tow a trailer that I borrowed from work to haul a car on which had a 6 pin hookup, and so I needed an adaptor... then I discovered that there are apparently two standards for the six pin - sometimes the electric brakes are the center pin, and sometimes it's teh auxilary power. They had adaptors for both ways. So, if you're ever wiring anything, buying a vehicle or trailer or an adaptor, make sure you know what you have.

 

If you had checked the link in my previous post (for the 6 pin connectors) you would have learned about it beforehand. So far as I know, blue has always been for trailer brakes.

 

No kidding, blue has always been for brakes, that's standard, but without taking your connector apart, it's tough to know whether that blue goes to the center or to one of the outside pins on a 6-pin connector, and I just wanted to point out that a lot of people might not think to check and that it's something you should know for sure.

You'll note that, even in that link, it's merely a footnote that sometimes the aux and brake wires are switched. Still, that is a useful link.