I want to put an electric brake controller on my 96 f250. How difficult is the wiring and how long to do it? I was looking in Northern Tool cataloge and they had some in the $40-80 range. Not looking for top of the line or all the bells and whisles, just a good reliable easy to operate one. Looks like when you buy a brake controller you still need to buy the plug in reciever, that the trailer wiring plugs into, seperate. Thanks for any help.

 

The wiring is super easy, just go to Napa or some place similar and tell them you need a brake control wiring harness. Mine cost about $10 and came with butt connectors, connect like colored wires between the brake control and the adapter, mount the control, and plug in the adapter = done. The plug for the brake control is right above the trans tunnel pointed toward the driver's side, its rectangular with 6 pins in it. You can't hardly miss it.
FWIW, I bought a brand new Tekonsha P3 brake control on Craigslist for $45. It's the top notch brake control on the market right now, normally sell for about $150 IIRC. It's pretty slick- no need to level the sensor (simple but can be time consuming), has a boost feature for heavy trailers (who doesn't like something with BOOST? ) and a nice LCD display.
If you aren't **** retentive like yours truly, splice the 2 harnesses together and be done. I personally didn't want 3' of wire rolled up under the dash when I only needed about 10" of wiring or to have 2 super short harnesses spliced together, I wanted a clean factory looking install. I took apart the adapter I bought from Napa and, through much frustration and many bad words muttered, got the wires free from the pins, re-crimped the pins on to the wiring that came with the P3 which I cut to length, and reassembled the connector. If you could find the pins someplace online you'd be time and MAJOR frustration ahead. Or just splice away and don't let your **** retentiveness take control like I did

 

Thanks Chase, I will look into that one.

 

Other thing to look at is whether it is a timed or proportional controller. Timed are cheaper and when you step on the brake pedal it gradually applies the trailer breaks harder regardless of how hard you step on the break.

Proportional units are more $$ but when you step on the brake pedal it senses how hard you're trying to stop and applies trailer brakes accordingly.

 

thank you Colin that is very food info I did not know that.

 

I may be wrong, but I think most controllers on the market today are proportional controllers. I've had Tekonsha controllers in all of my trucks but 1 and never had a problem. My SD had a Draw-Tite controller that seemed much more basic than the Tekonsha unit I had in the truck before, but it worked just fine as well. Don't feel like you have to drop big $ on a top end controller just because, there are lots of good options out there. I only have the P3 because I got a screaming deal on it- Craigslist is your friend

 

I don't tow very much anyways.we bought a 7000 lb 27 foot camper that the excursion will mainly pull but a friend has a two axel that would be nice to borrow.

 

Like I said, shop around and find a good deal on something. Tekonsha Voyager is a good mid-line model. Try Ebay, E-trailer, Craigslist, and Google.