T-One Vehicle Wiring Harness with 4-Pole Flat Trailer Connector

Video Transcript for Trailer Wiring Harness Installation - 2009 Pontiac Vibe

Today we're working on a 2009 Pontiac Vibe. We're going to install a Tow-Ready T1 Connector Part # 118460. First, we're going to access the rear cargo area of the vehicle. We're going to open up the tray door for the spare tire well. And then we'll just take that out, set that aside for reinstallation later. We need to remove the threshold here across the back.Take your gear, screwdriver or trim tool, get underneath the plastic, gently pry it up to free the fasteners from the sheet metal.

Get a good look at the fasteners here. We'll go ahead and set that aside for reinstallation later. Now we need to open the access panels behind the tail light so we can locate the manufacturer's wiring. You can see here on the passenger side is the tail light wiring.We've got another access panel over on the driver side. You have to look around the corner of the trim panel a little more, but if you do, you'll find the wiring.

Behind each tail light, there will be an electrical connector that will match up identically to our Tow-Ready Connector. So what you'll do is press on the locking tab and disconnects it and then we'll take our Tow-Ready Connector and plug it in line with the manufacturers. You can see I've plugged the male end into the female of the Tow-Ready Connector and then Ill take the male end of the Tow-Ready Connector and plug it back in where I removed the manufacturers.Now, we're plugged in line with the manufacturer's wiring. Next, I'm going to take the passenger side wiring, which is the red and green wire and I will feed it down underneath and behind the trim panel, so we can pull it out across where we removed the threshold earlier. Our converter box has two more wires that we need to make connections on; the white wire which is our ground wire with the ring terminal, and our power wire.

Let's go ahead and find a suitable location for our ground wire. The sheet metal here behind the tail light will be a perfect location.I'll go ahead and get my drill and self-tapping screw and we'll fasten that to the sheet metal now. Now we need to go ahead and connect our power wire. Our power wire will be a feed directly from the battery. To run my power wire, we're going to run the length of the vehicle up into the engine compartment.

In order to do this, I'm going to locate the manufacturer's grommet that I can feed my wire through and make my connection. Let's go ahead and get under the vehicle and locate the grommet to feed our wire into. This rubber grommet here from the manufacturer leads under the quarter panel trim and the spare tire tools. This is the location that I'm going to use to feed my power wire out from my converter box up to the battery. So what I'm going to do is go ahead and pull the grommet out of place, take a utility knife, make a hole and then push the wire through and feed it up into the spare tire cargo area. Then I'm going to put my grommet back in place. Now, we get back inside the cargo area and make our connection with our converter box. We'll go ahead and pull our wire out that we just fed from underneath the vehicle, were going to strip back both ends and add my butt connector. Okay with all the connections made to our converter box we're going to go ahead and feed my wires back in behind the trim panel. With the wires tucked out of the way, we can go ahead and peel back the double-sided adhesive from our converter box and mount it into a clean, flat surface. Firmly press it into place and with that converter box mounted, we need to go over to the passenger side and make our wire connections over there. To get in behind the trim panel on the passenger side, I'm going to use a piece of air tube as a fish line to assist me in pulling my wire through. You could also use a stiff piece of wire or whatever you have that would make this task easier. You see I just fed it into our access hole and it came out under the cargo tray. Now that we got our plug in behind the access panel, we'll go ahead and locate the Y-connector just as we do on the driver's side. Unlock the male end from the female end and get it plugged in line with our Tow-Ready Connector with the manufacturer's connector. Tuck our wires back in behind the access panel. We can go ahead and reinstall the interior here in the cargo area. When routing your power wire up to the engine compartment, a couple of things to consider: you want to stay away from the steering and suspension components that can pinch or harm the wire or excessive heat that can also harm the wire. Now let's go ahead and run our wire up front into the engine compartment. All right, now we've run our wire into the engine compartment let's go ahead and pull it up from what we fed underneath and got our wire up. Let's go ahead and take a zip tie. We're going to secure it right here to the manufacturer's wiring. Now that we've routed our wire to the positive battery post, what I'm actually going to do is trim it off back a little further, because we still need to add our fuse holder, cut our wire, strip it back, add our butt connector, and then we'll prep our fuse holder. Our fuse holder we're going to go ahead and cut in half. Strip back both sides. One side will get added into our butt connector, the other side we'll add a ring terminal to attach to the positive battery post. Okay and also we have not installed our fuse yet, and now we are ready to go ahead and attach it to the battery post. Go ahead and tie it back down. We're going to use one more zip tie just to secure my fuse holder. This will give it a little extra room in case you ever need to move it around. Just go ahead and take my cutters. Cut up the extra from our zip ties and now we're ready to go ahead and install the fuse into our fuse holder. Now that our install is complete, let's go ahead and show you how to use your new 4-Pole Connector. Remove the access panel door. Pull our 4-Pole Connector out into the center of the vehicle. We can go ahead and close the door on the wires to where the weather stripping is thick enough that it won't hurt it. Stay away from the latch, as that can pierce or harm the wire. And when you're completed using your 4-pole connector, simply open the door, roll it back up, put it inside the cargo compartment. Close the access door. And there you have it for our Tow-Ready T1 Connector Part # 118460 on a 2009 Pontiac Vibe.