Trailer Brake Controller Installation - 2004 Ford E-450

Installation of a Trailer Brake Controller on a 2004 Ford E-450

Alright today on this 2004 Ford E450 thats an RV, were going to install a brake controller part number 90915. We will be using an adapter cord 3035-P, and on the back of the vehicle well be using 4 pole to 7 pole adapter part number 37185, and also a bracket to hold everything together 118140, and with these parts well fill in the gaps that are missing on part of this tow package. Okay we are going to start off by working on the rear of the RV and working our way forward. What we are going to do is actually remove the 5 pole connector that is located on the hitch right now. Were going to disconnect that and add a new connector to the back of the vehicle, and that part number will be adapter part number 37185, and we will also be using an adapter bracket part number 118140, and we will start with that part. This is the adapter bracket; we are going to mount to the bottom by clamp to hold it in place.

Were going to strap through the clamp and then take the threaded part and push it back towards it and it locks it in place. Then you could go ahead and tighten it up. Okay and then we will install the bracket that comes with the adapter part number 37185. Lets go ahead and add the connector, this hardware does come with the connector. Alright lets go ahead and leave it alone for now, lets go ahead and remove the old connector on the other side of the hitch.

We wont need this anymore so we will just cut our wires, and well just take our wires and bring it over here, and go ahead and start connecting our wires. Our adapter here comes with four pole flat, and actually this vehicle did not have one, so were just going to cut this off and splice it in direct. We will be matching it up color for color. The white wire we are going to leave alone because the bracket comes with a heavier white wire, and we will connect that directly to the frame. Alright lets go ahead and tape these together, well reuse loom here.

Next go ahead and deal with the purple wire this is actually connected up to a reverse light, so on our vehicle here our tow package we will find that the black with a purple stripe is a reverse light, and this is totally optional. If your trailer has reverse lights great, if not you dont have to hook this up. We will go ahead and use a quick splice connector for this. For now our hold the wires, and run our length, see what we need, and well cut off the excess. Alright now all our lighting circuits are already hooked up.

Now we are going to work on our hot lead for our 12 volt power supply out back, and our brake controller output. Now the tow package ends a little bit further up the frame so were going to add some length to this wire right here, using this cable right here. Were using 10 gage cable wrapped up in a jacket here. We will connect these two up they run to the end of the tow package. Now of course we dont have the right colors, but were going to do the best we can we are going to use black to black, and white to blue. Lets go ahead and seal this up with some tape and lets go ahead and continue on. Alright we are going to run our wire in to our tow package which is this connector right here. Now these ends you could probably buy from the Ford Dealership, but they are kind of hard to find these days so we are actually just going to cut this off and splice in direct. Okay these two circuits here arent being used, so we will go ahead and remove those, and the ones that we want to use is blue and orange wire. Lets cut our gray cable to match, and we splice our wires together. We know that the orange wire is our 12 volt power supply, so that will go with our black wire which is 12 volts, and then our blue wire is for output to our brake controller and we are going to connect that to our white which goes back to blue on the 7 pole connector, and we will use some more butt connectors to connect the wires. Okay we will seal this up as well. Okay the next thing we will do is take our white wire with the ring terminal, thats the ground and well connect that to the frame. We use a number 14 self tapping screw to attach the ground. Okay now go ahead and zip tie our wires a safe knob away. Alright now we are done with the back, lets go up to the front underneath the dash on the drivers side. Next we will go ahead and mount our brake controller, were going to start off with the bracket that comes with it, and theres a piece of sheet metal underneath the dash right here that we can attach it to. Were going to go ahead and clamp it into place, and we will take a couple of sheet metal screws, and well run it into the steel of the bracket. Okay take the brake controller, install the adapter cord, and attach the brake controller to the bracket. Take the other half of the adapter cord, and we will go ahead and run that over to the port, which is located on the drivers side body panel, right below the fuse assembly, now there are two of these connectors too, so make sure you get the connector that has a blue wire, a red wire, and a green wire. Snap them together, and then we zip tie our wires a safe knob away. Now we have plugged in our harness, and you could tell we have power going to the brake controller, so all we have to do now is try it with a trailer. Alright and there you have it for part number 90195 the P-3 Brake Controller, and adapter cord 3035-P from Tow Ready. .