Trailer Brake Controller Installation - 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan

Installation of a Brake Controller for a Trailer on a 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan

Today on this 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan we are going to install brake controller and we are going to be using part number 5520 the Activator 3 from Draw-Tite. We are going to be using a bracket part number 118136 from Tow Ready and we are going to be using brake controller install kit part number ETBC7. We will begin our install by installing our bracket on the hitch and we will clamp it into place using the supplied clamp. Next we will take the 7-pole bracket and install that next onto the bracket that we just did. Next thing we need to do is prepare the 7-pole that comes with the ETBC7 kit and get it ready to install in our bracket. What we are going to do next is connect our gray cable to our 7-pole cables so basically we are going to strip this back and make our connections. We are going to hook this black to black, and this black wire is going to go straight up to the battery for our 12 volt power supply and that is it. This white wire is going to go to the blue wire that is going to go to our brake controller so when we go back up to the brake controller this white wire will go back up to the blue. 01:03

Tape that up then put the loom material on. On the purple wire actually goes to the reverse light lead, if the trailer needs it all you need to do is run it to your reverse light behind one of the tail lights and just make the connection there. In this case we are not going to be installing that so we will just tape it back up and keep it out of the way for safe keeping. This is our white wire and that is going to go directly to the frame on the vehicle itself. We will mount our 7-pole up to the bracket and bolt it into place and then what we will do is route it over to the left hand side around the hitch and then we will go around the trunk well and then go up towards the front of the vehicle. Next we are going to plug in our ETBC7 wiring harness into the 4-pole wiring harness that is already installed on the vehicle so it is a good idea for our connections to add a little bit of contact grease especially for a connection that is going to stay together for a long time. 02:03

We will mount the ground screw to the frame of the vehicle and then we will start finishing up working towards the front of the vehicle with the gray cable. Now we will continue routing our wire from the back of the vehicle up to the front working our way into the engine compartment coming out by the battery. We want to make sure we keep it from anything that is moving or gets hot. We have got our wire, we pulled it up from bellow into the engine compartment. Next we will find a place for our circuit breakers. To do that we are going to cut back on some of the insulation to get to a solid piece of sheet metal and we will attach there. We are going to use a 40 amp circuit breaker from the hot lead going out to the 7-pole connector out back and we will mount up the 20 amp circuit breaker for the brake controller. Next we need to make a hole from the fire wall to the inside of the cabin and we are going to make a hole in the grommet fir the main wire harness. What we are going to do is pull out the harness, use a sharp instrument to poke a small hole in it and then make it larger and then push some wires through it to make the hole big enough to get everything through. With those preparations complete we can start working with our gray cable again. 03:32

We are going to lay out how much cable we need to go from the 40 amp circuit breaker over to the battery and then the other half we will just cut off there. Next we are going to cut back the sheath that was too wires. The black wire is going to the 40 amp circuit breaker and then on to the battery and eventually the white wire will get pulled inside the cabin which will hook up to the blue wire on the brake controller. We have got one connection to the circuit breaker. Now we will do from the copper end of the circuit breaker and we will cut our wire to length to match up to the positive post on the battery. We will not connect to the battery now. It will be one of the last things we do. Next we will take the excess gray cable we cut off and turn it around and reuse that going from the battery, through the circuit breaker, and going out to the brake controller. The black wire is going to be used for power and the white wire will be used for ground. Remember when we make the connections to the battery it is going to be one of the last steps. Next we will pull our wire through the grommet. What we are going to do first is use a pull wire. We are going to start from the inside and push it through to the outside and then pull our three wires which is going to be the gray cable, the black and white wires, and then our remaining white wire we will bundle those together and pull it back through the grommet. Now we are going to take our gray cable cut it to length. We are going to split it to where the wires are going to have enough length to go to the negative side of the battery and then our black wire is going to go over to our circuit breaker. The next thing we will do is hook up the wire harness to the wires we pulled through from outside. Our brake control wiring harness we will put the blue wire from the harness to a single white wire. Remember that white wire goes out back to the 7-pole. 06:05

We are going to run the black wire to the black wire that is in the gray sheath. White to white and that is going to be the white that is still in the gray sheath and then our red wire, that is our final one, we are going to extend that one and connect that to the cold side of the brake switch. What we do is follow the harness up and around and we found that this goes right back to the harness right here. We looked at the colors and probed only the colors that went with the switch and we found out that the white with the green stripe is the one that comes on when you hit the brake pedal. That will be the wire that we hook up the red wire to for our brake controller. Now you can see we have all of our connections made, we will leave that alone for now and we will install the bracket underneath the bottom of the dash for our brake controller. There is a nice flat spot on the bottom of the dash and we are going to mount it as far to the right hand side as possible and it is going to be above the brake pedal but still try to keep it in reach of the driver. Next we will plug the wire harness into the back of the brake controller and then we will mount the brake controller to the bracket we just installed. After we have the brake controller installed we can tidy up our wires and mount them in a safe place. Lets go back underneath the hood now and lets hook up our wires to the battery. Remember our white wire will be going to ground. Remember the white wire is coming out of the sheath. The two black wires will be connected up to the positive side of the battery. We have got everything hooked up. Check out the brake controller. Do the manual override. You can also see how fast it comes on with a slide switch on this side of the body of the brake controller. That controls how soon or how late the brake controller comes on. With the slide pulled all the way back towards this end of the brake controller and you see how fast it comes on. Go back the other way, forward, and it comes on slower. There you have it for part number 5520 from Draw-Tite, the Activator 3, the ETBC7 kit from etrailer.com, and our bracket 118136 from Tow Ready.