Trailer Brake Controller Installation - 2011 Chevrolet Silverado

Installation of a Trailer Brake Controller on a 2011 Chevrolet Silverado

Today on this 2011 Chevy Silverado pickup, we are going to be installing the Prodigy P2 brake controller part number 90885. Our 2011 Silverado actually comes with a factory installed brake control wiring package on it already. So, there is no need for use to run the wires manually. The wires that we are looking to wire our brake controller into are located underneath the dash area, just directly above the brake pedal. These wires are open ended and are taped to the main wiring lead. If you locate the wires and pull them out a little bit, you can see that there is actually a label tied to it that indicates which wire is which. And that way you will know that you have the correct wires for the brake controller. So with the wires located, we can go ahead and cut the tape that is holding it to the main wiring harness lead here. And that will allow us to pull it down so we have some more working room. And with those pulled down, we will quickly go over the wires that we have here. We are actually only going to be using four of these wires to hook to our brake controller. And we are going to go ahead and wire those together now. 1:00

So we want to take the wiring harness lead that comes with the P2 brake controller. Now the colors of the wires of the brake control harness are not going to match up color to color with the wire colors on our Chevy pickup. So I am going to go ahead and indicate how we are going to wire them together. The black wire here on our brake control harness is the 12 volt power source. We are going to wire that to the red wire on the pickup truck. The dark blue wire is the outgoing brake signal from the brake controller. That is actually going to wire to the dark blue on the truck. The light gauge red wire is our brake switch signal. That is what is going to activate the controller. That is going to be wired to the light gauge light blue wire with the white stripe. And then finally we have the lighter gauged white wire which is our ground. And that is actually going to wire into the white wire on the truck. Now the fifth wire on the truck, which is an orange wire, is an illumination feed. The particular brake controller that we are using does not require this lead to activate the controller so we are not going to be using this. 2:04

So from there, we can go ahead and wire the two together. We are going to be using the provided connectors that come with the brake controller to make our connections. And then with those connections made, we want to go ahead and just tape up the lead which I have already started doing here. We are going to tape all of the way up. Again, we are going to tape up the orange wire as well. With the wiring harness taped up, we are next going to decide where we want to go ahead and mount the brake controller. With this particular vehicle, if we follow down the dash board, it actually has a small plastic flange here that is just wide enough for us to mount our mounting bracket in to. So I think we are going to go ahead and use it. Now, the P2 comes with two different mounting bracket options. There is a larger pocket which makes for a quick removal of the unit. And then there is a smaller, more permanent mount. And for this particular vehicle, we are going to be using this one. Now with the mounting bracket, we do need to mount it in a straight line with the braking of the vehicle. We cannot have it turned left or right. The Prodigy, being inertia activated, will not function properly. Once we have ensured that it is straight and aligned the holes, we can go ahead and mount the bracket into place. With the mounting bracket up, we will go ahead and mount the P2 next. And then finally, we just need to take the other end of our wiring harness and plug it into the back side of our brake controller. It might be a good idea to tie up the loose wires we have here on the back side. 3:38

So we are up under the hood now. The wire that we are looking for to activate the brake controller is actually located on the fender side. So the first thing I am going to do is go ahead and remove the cover for the fuse box. If you take a look in between the fuse block and the fender well, you can see the red wire with the ring terminal on it. It is taped to this main wiring harness lead. We need to get that un-taped and bring it out. We are actually going to connect it to the studs here on the front side of the fuse block. And while we are here, there is a second powered wire for our 7-pole tow package in the rear. That also can be connected at this time. And this is the 12 volt hot lead that is available back at our 7-pole plug on the rear of the truck. And if you notice that the ring terminals that are mounted on our two wires have different sizes, you will also notice that the studs we are going to mount them to have different sizes. So they will real connect to only one or the other. So we can go ahead and put those on now. Now we will need to provide the nuts to tighten the wires on to the studs. The larger one is an 8 millimeter by 1.25 thread. And the smaller one is a 6 millimeter by 1.0 thread. Now you may have some trouble trying to get the nut onto the studs because of this grey handle here. If at all possible, you want to avoid lifting this handle up because what that will do is actually release the mounting tabs of the fuse block. And, if those are fully released, you will have to go back to the factory and possibly have the vehicle reset by the manufacturer. 5:10

And then with those connections made, the final thing that we want to do is just to verify that the fuses are in place to activate those. The two fuses that we are looking for are right here, the nearest ones to the studs. You can see here, on this vehicle we have the 30 amp fuse already in place. And that is the one that activates the brake controller. The second one, however, for the hot lead at the 7-pole is not in position, so that will need to be provided as well. And that is actually a 40 amp fuse that needs to be put in place. Once we have those two in line, our brake controller and 7-pole are fully active. If you would like, you can go ahead and take and tie up some of the loose wire on the two power leads. But from there, installation is complete. We will quickly show you what the brake controller is going to look like now that we do have power to it. Now you can see with the power lead to the brake controller connected that the brake controller now has two dots on it, showing that the brake controller does have power but does not have a trailer connected. And then once we connect to our trailer and the brake controller recognizes the brakes, a C will show up on the brake controller. And we will get a digital read out. With that, that will conclude the installation of the Prodigy P2 brake controller, part number 90885.