7-Way Pre-Wired Car Connector, 7' Lead

Video Transcript for Trailer Wiring Harness Installation - 1998 Chevy Silverado

When pulling a 5th wheel or gooseneck trailer it is convenient to be able to plug the trailers electrical connector right into the bed of the truck. This is safer for the wiring and easier for you as you will not have to spend time securing the wiring along the trailer and then back down to the bumper. Most trucks have factory installed tow packages and custom wiring which can be quickly added and installed in the truck bed. Here Chris has a video showing us what he had to do to set up a 1998 Chevy truck, you will be surprised at how fast it can be done.

Today we are going to install harness 20023 on a 1998 Chevy Silverado. Step one is we are going to pick a location in the bed to mount the 7 pole. Right here next to the wheel well so you will have a short distance between the 5th wheel hookup and the plug itself. You want to make sure that you have enough clearance on the back side of this piece of metal to mount the plug basically so you do not drill through to the other side and so you have enough room to mount it as well. 2-3/8 inch hole saw here and drill it right here through the side of the bed. Once we have the hole drilled through the side of the bed we want to feed the harness down through the hole and down the side of the bed. Once the harness is fed through you want to center the plug and mark the holes. So we can drill out for the fastener. Once the holes are marked you want to pull the harness back out so that we do not have any trouble with any interference drilling the holes out. We are going to use 5/16 inch self tapping bolts to mount the plug. Once we have marked the holes and drilled them out we want to go ahead and mount the plug into place.

Once we have mounted the plug we are going to come under the bed now. What we are going to do is route these wires up and over the frame. On the 1998 Chevys and the previous years, back through 2004, they have a previously existing tow package which you can find back behind the bumper tied up in the frame well. Normally the wires are open ended with nothing attached to them. With this vehicle there is already a plug that has been wired in the bed previously existing from the customer which has already been tapped into the wiring harness here. We are going to connect our new 7 pole to the existing tow package using quick splices. On the Chevy tow package the wires come previously coated with a particular color. Blue is for electric brakes, orange is your hot lead 12 volt for the battery, smaller brown one is for the running lights, the large white one is for the ground, dark green is your right turn and right brake, yellow left turn and left brake, and light green is for reverse lights.

Now on the 7 pole harness the red is your left hand turn and stop. White is ground, black is your 12 volt positive, green is your right turn signal and right brake, and yellow is for your reverse lights. On the harness the white ground wire has a loom or ring terminal. You can connect to the frame or chassis or even directly to the white ground wire provided by the tow package. Once all the connections are made we are going to test it before we tape it up just to make sure they all have a good connection. After testing and making sure all the wires are connected properly we will go ahead and tape it all back up and fasten the loose wires. After all the wires are secure up and under the muffler your installation is complete. This concludes the installation 20023 into the bed of the 1998 Chevy pickup.

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