Brake Controller Installation - 2008 GMC Sierra
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Products Featured in this Video
Twist-in, 7-Pole, RV-Style Trailer Connector for Chevy and GMC Vehicles - Vehicle End
PK11916
$14.95
Replacement Brake Control Plug-In Harness for Tekonsha and Draw-Tite Brake Controllers, 12" Long
20127
$4.95
Installation of a Trailer Brake Controller on a 2008 GMC Sierra
Today we are going to be installing a brake controller on this 2008 GMC Sierra. The part number is 5520 along with the 7-way replacement socket for the GM products part number PK11916. OK, we are going to start in the rear, installing the 7-Pole replacement socket. We are back behind the bumper here and if you can see this unit here is actually the 7-pole factory socket we are going to be plugging into. So we want to go ahead and disconnect this, off of the knockout that goes into the bumper. We are back on the outside of the bumper here and this knockout here is going to actually be removed. This is where the 20047 is going to be put in place of. Now that the knockout is removed we want to go ahead and put the replacement socket in there. It just slides in, you are going to line up the notches and just rotate it. Then it will lock right into place.
I am going to take the socket that we removed from the backside of the knockout earlier and plug it into the back of the 7-way here. We are back behind the bumper now and you can see the socket that we removed earlier, we are just going to plug it back into the back of the 20047. We are back inside the cab now down below the steering column, down by the brake pedal. If you look up under here you can see a bundle of wires taped up with this white tag. This is going to be our bundle for the tow package for the brake controller itself. We will need to cut those wires down to give us a little more room to work with. Alright I went ahead and pulled all the wires out here and the brake controller that we are using is going to require you to purchase a universal plug as well the 20127. It is going to have the 4 loose wires here. We are going to connect the red wire here, off of the GMC, into the black wire of the brake controller. The dark blue will connect with the dark blue. The light red on the harness here will connect to the light blue. Finally the white, light gauge wire will connect to the white on the harness. Once the connections are made we are going to go ahead and tape them up with electrical tape. OK, now that we have the plug wired in we just want to find a suitable mounting location for the mounting bracket.
Typically you want to mount the brake controller to the right side of the steering column like somewhere in this area. It has to be somewhere you can have easy access to the brake controller in an emergency braking situation. On this GMC there is a roll over flange on the bottom edge of the dash. We will mount the brake controller mounting bracket sit flush here on the end of the dash. With the brake controller now mounted in place you want to go ahead and route the wires in an area where you are going to be away from anything hot and or moving. Objects such as the gas and brake pedal. We want to just go ahead and plug into the back of the unit. Once we have gone ahead and plugged the unit in we want to zip tie all the excess wires back up and out of the way.
We are under the hood here we are going to finalize the connections for the brake controller to remove the cover for the fuse. There are going to be 2 wires that we need to connect. The first one is the power feed for the brake controller which is located right here on the side. Which we will run it to this post in the front right side of the battery. We also have the accessory power 12 volt feed which is right here with the ring terminal. Once again we are going cut the tape and we will run it to this post here. The ring terminal for the brake controller is going to go on the far left post. The 12 volt lead for the plug is going to be ran over here to the far right. For these posts you are going to need to provide your own nuts to tighten these down. You will also need to fuse these as well. The post the brake controller needs to be fused with a 30 amp fuse and the post for the 12 volt hot lead will need a 40 amp fuse. That completes the installation of part number is 5520. A brake controller installed on a 2008 GMC Sierra. along with part number 20047. The 7-way replacement socket for the GM products and the 20127 replacement brake control plug-in harness.
