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Use your towed car's signal lights without tapping into its wiring. This self-contained wiring kit bypasses your Ford Explorer's electrical system, eliminating any concerns over violating the manufacturer's warranty.
Features:
Note: Towed car must have enough room inside the tail light lens housing for an extra bulb and socket.
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Today on our 2010 Ford Explorer, we're going to show you how to install the Roadmaster Bulb and socket kit with bulbs part number RM-155. We'll hook our tow vehicle up to the front here, we'll start by turning on the taillights. With those working, let's check the left blinker, then our left break. Now our right blinker and our right break. Now as you can see, we mounted our plug in the position we went right on top of the bumper structure there. That way we wouldn't have any issues once we had everything on and trying to get it installed. WE're going to take care of getting our bracket mounted for where our wiring's going to go up here in the front.
Now a lot of times, like this bracket on the top side, we need to elevate it just slightly, so we just took a little piece kind of bent it up there to where it'll kind of elevate it up to where it'll appear out from behind our bumper. Now for the socket wiring kit that we're putting in, we need this to be connected up there at the front. It needs to make a detour by the breaking system that we're using and then head to the back of the vehicle. What we're going to do is just take the majority of it, pass it right down through to where we can find it on the underside of the vehicle, get that ran back there where we want it you can see it just pop out there below the car. We'll take our loop, we're going to leave a little bit up here on top so we can get that connected, then just run it right back. Slack out to the mean, there we go, and over there to our bug side.
I'm going to pass that thought he bracket and we're going to be trimming that off just behind that inaudible 00:02:10 plug. We'll bring in the rubber cap that's on the back of the socket. That's going to slide over all four of our wires. Now we need to strip the end off of each one here. Then we'll put them in their respective spots here in the back. The white wire, that's going to be our ground.
Next one we have is TM, that's trailer marker, that's going to be our brown wire. Skip one there, we're going to go to RT, that's the right turn signal, that will be our green wire. Then finally our yellow wire, that's going to be our left turn signal. Now while it's not a necessary step, since these wires are going to just kind of be hanging out there exposed, you'll be able to see them behind the grill, let's take some electrical tape and just wrap them up as neatly as we can here. Now up here on the top, you can see we've just routed our wire right here. I'm going to use a zip tie just to hold the slack in it that we need right here on top. Now we're going to start routing our wire towards the rear of our vehicle.
We want to avoid any significant sources of heat, any pinch points, any sharp metal edges, anything that might damage the wire essentially. See how we're just kind of going over top of that pass shaft location, we don't' want it to get near there. We'll go right up from there into kind of the ear the spare tire is. Now let's use a couple more zip ties. Now we'll trim the plug end off of our four pull wiring, then we'll tart pulling each wire apart to separate them. Now we'll use our green, our brown and our white wire, we're going to run this up behind the passenger side tail light. To do this we're going to use a little pull wire. We've got airline tubing here, you could use a coat hanger, stiff piece of wire, but you just want to tape the three of them off. That way when we remove our tail light, we'll be able to pull them up to us. Now we'll stick them up in the small slot here and kind of direct it up towards the bottom of our tail light housing. Now we're going to take the two screws out of the side of the tail light here that require the 8mm socket. You want to pull that housing out. Now we want to separate the two clips on the outside here to kind of hold that tail light in place. Now let's pull our plugs off the backside here. They've all got just little push tabs on them. Let's set those aside. Now let's bring our pull wire on through. Now with our housing off, you can see we've pulled that lower light out and we're going to go right about here and drill just a small pilot hole in. When we do this, we'll kind of hold everything upwards, that way any particles will have a better chance of falling down and hitting the ground rather than going inside of our light. Now let's use our 1 inch hole saw and finish making our hole. Now let's take our socket and kind of bend our tabs out a little bit. For this application, we've got to be pretty careful about how we put it in there. Our bulbs are going to want to touch so we're going to put half of the socket inside of the light and we're going to use these teeth on the other half of the socket to keep it from going in. We'll bring about the top half of the teeth in, we'll let those make good contact as you can see right there. Then we're going to use the bottom teeth to kind of hold out on it slightly and we're just going to seal that up with some silicone to give us a nice seal that'll leave our bulbs separated just enough to where they'll both work properly on the front side. Now I'm just going to use some RTV silicone, we're going to go around there really well, make sure it gets a good hold. All right, now that should do it. We'll let this one sit to the side and let that sealant have time to kind of firm up while we take care of drilling out our other light. Now that we've got our sockets installed in our lights, let's get our wiring ready. We're going to start by taking just enough brown wire for what we need here. We're going to strip both ends of that back. Kind of place those together and give them a little twist to kind of make them from two wires into one wire. Yellow butt connector's going to slide down on there, get it crimped down. Anytime we make a crimp, we want to make sure we've got good connection there. Let's do the same for our white wire here. Now for the green one, we're just going to trim that off. Now I need one end of this, we'll strip it, and this one's going to get one of our blue butt connectors, slide that on and crimp it. Now for your green wire, I recommend tucking it down here because we don't want it to fall back in and disappear on us. The other ones are going to be kind of held in place by the other wires here. The end of our wires here where we still have our fish line attached, I'm going to trim the green off, leave the brown and white on there. Then we'll wrap that right back down to the underside of the vehicle. See if we reach under, we'll be able to find it there. We're going to pull that brown and white slack back down through. Now let's strip the end off of each of the wires coming from our light. The black one, I'm going to strip it off extra long and I'm going to fold it over. THat's going to give that yellow but connector more meat or more wire to grab on to. Do the same thing for my brown wire and then we'll strip off just a normal length for the red wire. Our red wire gets connected to our green wire. That's going to be for our passenger side turn signal. The black wire, it gets connected to our white wire, that's going to be for our ground. Then lastly, the brown wire, it gets connected to our brown wire, that's for our running lights. All right, I'll just use a little tape and wrap those up. All right, now we're ready to put our tail light back in. Right back into it's spot. Now we're going to add our yellow wire onto the brown and white wire that we passed out from under the car. Let's get these over to the driver's side. We're just going to run them right along that bumper structure there. We'll just keep working it on across here. We're just going to use zip ties as we go to keep everything up nice and secure. Right over the frame rail there. All right, perfect, now let's make our connections up there. Now for our wiring on this side, we're going to take our yellow wire, we'll cut that off, strip the end, and on this one, we're going to add a little blue butt connector. Now let's do our brown wire. Same treatment on this one. Now for the white one, we're going to do it the same way we did the white one on the other side. We're going to strip it, or cut it, then we'll strip both ends. This is going to get a yellow butt connector. Now let's take about 5, 6, 7 inches of the tag end, the one that's connected to our full wire. Cut, strip, this time we're going to add on a rain terminal. Then we can take a self-tapping screw, we'll get it anchored right into the body. Now again, our black wire that's going to go to our white wire and since we've got that larger butt connector, we need to strip some extra off. Our brown's going to go to our brown, and our red to our yellow. Now we're going to tape this side up just like the other side. We'll just slide our connectors back on. Get our bolts started and get them secure. That's going to complete today's installation of the Roadmaster bulb and socket kit, part number RM-155 on our 2010 Ford Explorer.
Average Customer Rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (246 Customer Reviews)
Use your towed car's signal lights without tapping into its wiring. This self-contained wiring kit bypasses your vehicle's electrical system, eliminating any concerns over violating the manufacturer's warranty.Always completely satisfied with Etrailer service and products! Jamie B is very knowledgable and courteous!
This was a good option for our 2020 Chevy Equinox because it does not tie into the tow vehicle electrical system and runs directly from the Motorhome electrical system.
Went pretty easy. Holes for bulbs do fit in the rear lights. I had to use a 6way plug that had a 4way line on it also.
Put this into a 2002 Jeep Liberty. Good directions. Drilled out the lower part of tail light housing and install bulb sockets into it. You may have to deburr the tail light housing a bit and manipulate the tangs on the bulb socket but is fine. I put in 1157 LED bulbs :) Good stuff!
easy install one year later still working perfectly
it worked well
This product was easy to install but it took some time routing the wiring harness from the front bumper to the rear. Pick up some extra zip ties, you will need several. The lighting system is independent allowing for the use of LED bulbs. Great product.
very well made and packaged
Great customer service fast delivery and reasonable price. Been purchasing from ETrailer for years
great kit i have installed them before
Found this item was wired with the brake lights for the brown wires and turn/running lights for colored wires and this fact kept me from getting this done very rapidly. Once identified, went together really nicely and actually grounded to frame for higher light output. I upgraded 3 wire into 2 wire converter with "Roadmaster Brite-lite 3 to 2 Wiring Converter" and they are as bright as the lights already in the housing. Except for that wiring issue, it would have been excellent. As to performance after install, great. Customer service was nice from Roadmaster as well. Did receive a call back message from etrailer a couple days later.
I purchased a Blue Ox base plate, Air Force One braking system, and a light kit for my 2013 Durango. I could have not asked for an easier process with selecting and ordering, also the tutorials and videos were a great help in determining what was the best system for me . Everything arrived as planned and in great condition. This is not my first time using etrailer.com and my prior experience was equally good.
Ken G.
10/23/2017
After using the items I reviewed, about 6,000 miles, I am more than satisfied. The towing setup is easy to hook up and unhook and the braking system is second to none. All of the installation was completed by myself and a friend, both of us have a technical background him more than me and we found the videos of the installation extremely helpful.Thank you for following up and providing excellent products as well as support services.
I like this product and would definitely buy it again. I like not having to splice into the vehicle wiring and install diodes, etc. It is a clean installation with good instructions. All I have to do to hook up the lights is raise the hood of the towed car and pull out the pigtail and hook it to the motorhome. It is powered by the motorhome and does not run down the battery in the towed car. Great product.
Gary Y.
8/19/2017
Works great! Would definitely recommend it.
Great idea. After years of towing with magnetic lights now all I have to do is plug it in, and I'm done.
The kit kit comes with more parts and wire than I needed and was simple to install on my 2010 JK.
Frank S.
6/27/2014
Thanks Patrick. It works so well I forgot I had it.
This kit really simplifies wiring tail lights on a vehicle that will be towed. No cutting into the vehicle's wiring and adding isolation diodes. Very functional and easy to install.
Kim P.
1/26/2016
The parts are working perfectly. Thank you.
This time it went without a hitch. last time was another thing. hopefully moving forward its all good.
thankyou
I have used the brake light wiring kit on 2 other towed vehicles. It is an easy install, does not compromise the original factory wiring and works well.
Robert
11/12/2018
Easy install, working well 1 year later.
Good instructions. Everything need is included for 4flat connections. One bulb socket arrived with the ground (black) wire loose in the bag. The solder joint had failed. Resoldered but had to remove the other wires and rubber insert from the bulb socket to avoid melting. Not a shining example for Roadmaster.
Joel
8/16/2015
no issues, working as expected
Kit was of good quality components. I would recommend about twice a much protective wire wrap along with extra of the smaller butt connectors. Fortunitely I had what I needed on hand. I also used a larger ring terminal.
Jack M.
5/9/2020
Works great. 2002 Jeep Wrangler tail lights have plenty of room for the extra tail light bulbs.
Watched video and installed with no issues. Great product! Will buy again for future vehicles.
Nice to not have to splice into vehicle wiring harness. Separate bulb assembly in existing tail light housing works great for towing our "TOAD" behind motor home.
Kevin M.
9/2/2020
Still works great after a year of towing to many destinations.
Great product, not a bad install and works great. I chose to cut off both 4 flat connectors and I installed a 4 round connector with spring cover on the front of my CRV. Looks and work out great.
W. D.
7/19/2017
Still working fine.
A very clever idea for an easy, neat, simple installation to safely operate tail lights on a towed vehicle. We installed this kit on our 2017 Chevy Sonic and it works great.
Edp
8/15/2018
Thanks for the follow up. Everything is working just fine, no problems, nothing but good performance.
Easy to install works great
Good materials and instructions. There is a YouTube video that is very helpful. I would have liked a longer connector that goes between the motor coach and the towed vehicle.
Ron S.
6/15/2017
Still working great!
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Robertbenita
6/30/2014
Continues to work as it should! Very pleased with end product after installation by myself and continue to be happy every time I hook up since! Nice item! And customer service...Well they checked back with me a year later to see if I needed anything. How is that for the best customer service around! A