Need trailer wiring help

[R Anestis]

I've been reading forums for a long time now. I'm just getting around to my first post, though. As it should say in my signature, my 2500 has the tow package on it. The problem is that I want to put a plug in the bed as well. I bought all the stuff to do it when I had the hitch put in the bed last week.

I crawled under the truck and expected to see a nice, easy, color to color match up of the wires like the hitch dealer said it should be. Yeah right. Not only do the colors not match, but there are eight wires going into the plug on the Class III . That's pretty wierd considering there are only seven terminals, and the normal wire used is very much color coded and seven conductor as well.

So here's the question: Can anyone tell me what color goes with what and what the heck that extra wire is for?

Thanks for any replies.

-Ron



PS: Thanks for a lot of great reading in the past (and future). I'll be posting more questions I'm sure. I want to start adding things like pillar guages and such.

 

[RobG]

The plug that you purchased for the bed (assuming it's also a seven-pin-flat connector) should have a wiring diagram in it, showing which colored wires (the standard colors, not necessarily the Dodge colors) go to which terminal, and which terminal does what.



From there, what I suggest you do is unbolt the factory connector from the hitch, so it'll drop down where you can reach it better. Using a meter (if needed, sometimes you can just look at it), you can map out which color wires go to which terminal.



THEN, you can splice into the factory wiring with wire taps to run wires up to the bed. At least that's how I'd do it. Let's see if anybody has any better ideas.



Rob

 

[LandShark]

This site has some good trailer plug info:



http://www.marksrv.com/wiring.htm

 

[B.G. Smith]

Trailer wiring

You might not want to go this way but I just bought a male plug and wired the cable going into the bed on both ends, my truck was new and I just didn't feel like cutting into the wiring harness, I just plug it into the trailer brake receptacle when pulling the trailer, otherwise it is unplugged. bg

 

[David Muench]

My truck came with a sheet in the glove box detailing which color wire is what function in the 7 wire plug. Worked great. The extra wire (if it's like my chassis cab) is probably for the CHMSL (3rd brake light).

 

[Ladders]

Wiring

While checking my wires (for another problem) the other day, the "double" (8th wire) turned out to be a ground. They must be using 2 wires to the ground pin due to the wire size (cheaper to run 2 #small vice 1 #bigger. At least thats what I found. If this is not correct then PLEASE post and e-mail the "correct" find.



SOTSU!!

\\BF//

 

[David Muench]

Could be. The CHMSL on mine had a white tag saying that, and it was a small white wire. Probably different on a normal pickup.



I like this new avatar picture.

 

[tcoombs]

Looking at the mounted connector.

Clockwise from pin in 1 o'clock position:

Battery (RD/TN)

Stop/Rt. Turn (BK/PK)

Electric Brake (LB)

Ground (BK)

Stop/Lt. Turn (DG/RD)

Running lights (BK/OR



Center Pin: Backup Lamps (VT/BK)



That was from a while ago though, I would probably pull the connector out and test it with a tester.



Hope this helps!



TMC

 

[R Anestis]

Thanks to everyone for the info. I'm working double shifts all week so I won' tbe able to get this done 'til the weekend. I have all the info I need now.

-Ron

 

[mongoose]

i agree with the above, when i was adding a 7 way in the bed of my '99 i found two white wires. both were ground. Don't know why but they both were. The kicker is that both wires were probably 10-12 gauge wires. I would say, plenty big for a ground.