Brake Controller Installation - 2005 Ford E250 without Tow Package
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Manufacturer Instructions
Installation of a brake controller on an 2005 Ford E250 Econoline Van without a Tow Package
The parts we are going to be using on our van today are the prodigy brake controller and the standard harness that comes with it. We will be adding a harness that will plug into the port in the van. This is one of those tow part packages we are going to fill in a blank with. Right now we are going to put our harness with our other harness here that came with the brake controller. It is a pretty simple procedure. We are going to match color for color. If you were using a factory brake controller harness, chances are there would be different colors and you just match the labels to the brake control wires.
We already stripped the wires and it is a good to idea to twist these which makes them stronger when you crimp them down. You might notice that this wire is pretty thin compared to the connector we are using here, it is usually good to use one that is a little bit smaller for matching. If you do not have one available, a simple trick is to strip it a little bit longer and twist and fold it over itself, which doubles it up and gives more for the metal to grip onto. Next we run some electric tape over the harness.
First step is to mount our brake controller bracket up to the dash. There is not much room to work with, but there is a handy phalange right here. So what we will do is, there is a couple holes, we are going to use one as a simple nut and bolt assembly. For the other side we will use a self tap in screw, that will keep it nice and close to the dash. Before we screw the brake controller we are going to put our plug in here, snap it in place and then we will install our screws. Next we route our wires to our port further back underneath the dash. Take our excess and wrap it up with a zip tie. This end will plug into the tow package port right here. Depending on the year of the vehicle, the port could be up higher on the wire harness. This essentially finishes it for the interior, now we need to work our wires from front to rear.
The next wire we have to connect is, we are going to run our main line or the blue brake controller wire out back and along the way were going to hook up a hot lead for 12 volts. All that entails is running a 10 gage cable with two conductors in it. Unfortunately it is not color coded so you must know which is which. In this case black is the 12 volt lead and the white is our brake signal. We will just run it through our frame and work our way to the front. When we get to the front, I will show you where we had to dig to find the wire because the wire in the port from the inside does not come all the way out back. What we did is run our wire through the frame and came to this junction here which is a good stopping point. We took the rest of our wire and shoved it up there, just far enough so we can reach from the top and pull it on up. While your down here, it would be good to throw some zip ties on in a couple of appropriate places. And then start working on the top side again.
To get access to the wires that come from the inside out, we will have to take a few components off. We will take off this reservoir. Just set it to the side and we will have to take off this cover to the power distribution box. There is a little cover here that goes over the power terminal for the junction box which we will use later to power our 12 volt hot lead. The wire we pulled from front to rear, just pull it out and route it so it will not hit anything hot or moving. Another thing to look out for is to make sure you stay clear of the steering shaft there. You do not want to get wound up there. It is always good to follow the existing harness. Run your wire to the longest point, give it a few more extra inches, and you know where to cut off your extra at. Now we will go ahead and take off the extra sheathing we do not need. Just cut it down the center here, try not to go off the side. Your black wire is going to the 12 volt hot lead, and your white will go to the blue wire for the brake control output. I will show you what wire we need to connect to. The wire, when it comes out from the inside to the outside for the brake control port, is this blue wire here. In different years it has been in different spots. Sometimes people think this is it right here but that is for a different circuit. You have to look around your harness and test for the wire. By itself the wire is not going to be powered so from the inside at the port. We are going to apply 12 volts going back into the blue wire. We use our light tester and test which blue gage wire has the closest to what was inside and used that to see if we had hot current going through. If it did, we knew that was our wire from the inside coming out. This blue wire here is very similar to the wire we were looking for. We did actually test it but it is used for a different purpose on this vehicle, probably for an option not installed on this van. Now we will go ahead and make our connection from the white wire to the blue wire. One way to do it is cutting it in half and using a bug connector on it or you can use a scotch lock. We are going to use the scotch lock in this spot here to keep it nice and clean so we do not have to tear up the harness anymore than we have to. Give it a tug to make sure you have a solid connection. Once our circuit breaker is installed, all we really have to do is run our wiring. This is going to be our hot lead going back, so it is going to hook up to the auxiliary side of the circuit breaker. It is labeled AUX for auxiliary. This side here will go to the battery, labeled BAT. We will just run our wire to the power point over here. Actually I already did put a ring terminal on here and another on the access wire. For our power pickup we will use a bigger ring terminal and just crimp that on. Now that we have our final position, we will use our second set screw later. With our connections done lets zip tie it to secure our wires. Cut off your excess and put the reservoir back in and we are done. We are down to our final two connections. As we stated before, our white wire is going to our blue wire for the brake control feed, and our black wire to our black wire for our 12 volt feed. Next we will wrap this up with electrical tape and bundle it up. Now that we have our wires bundled up, we will test our circuitry, making sure that everything is working. You will get a C on the display of your brake control unit you will get a good connection. Try it from manual override, and if the numbers are going up, you have a good condition. Then calibrate the controller according to the manufacturers instructions.
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