Trailer Wiring Harness Installation - 2005 Mini Cooper

Installation of a Trailer Wiring Harness on a 2005 Mini Cooper

Today, we're working on a 2005 Mini Cooper. We're going to install a 4-pole connector 119176KIT. First, we'll start by accessing the rear cargo area of the vehicle. Ok, now we've accessed the rear compartment we're going to go ahead and remove the spare tire tool cover. We'll set it aside for reinstallation later.

Now I'm going to go ahead and use my trim tool to remove the rear thresh hold. You can use a screw driver or maybe a flat pry bar would work also. It's going to be multiple snaps holding the threshold in place. Someone gently pry them up. And you can see here inside, we've got some pushpin tabs that will have to be removed.

We've got one each side and one on the center. You can see we've got the wire coming from the threshold to the tail gate, we're going to go ahead and disconnect that so we'll remove the grommet, expose the connector. Press on the locking tab, pull it free and our grommet slides out of the threshold and we live our wire sitting here. So we've got a PowerPoint socket also part of our rear threshold, we're going to go ahead and disconnect that. Now we can set the threshold out of the way.

Next, we're going to remove the plastic trim on the driver's side. To do that there's multiple fasteners that we'll have to remove. You see here we've gained access to the back of the tail light. This is the plug that connects to the back of the tail light. So we'll use these wires to check and see which one is our blinker, our brake, and our running light, then we'll go over to the passenger's side and find our blinker over there.

Now, we've gained access to the tail light or the back of the tail light. We're going to go and disconnect it. Ok, so we've identified the violet wire with a purple tracer is our running-light. Black wire with a green tracer is our brake light then we've got a blue wire with a green tracer--is our driver's side turn signal. Let's go ahead and make our connections now so we'll take our quick connector, we'll slide it all the way on, and I'll take the brown wire from our converter box. Slip our wire in, take my pliers and we'll go ahead and smash it down then lock the clasp. It completes the hook-up for our running lights. Let's go ahead and do our brake lights and then our turn signal. On the OEM side, the purple wire is our running lights and it goes to the brown wire on our converter box, then the black wire, black wire with a green tracer, goes to the red wire on our converter box, and the blue wire with the green tracer will go to the yellow wire, our turn signal, from our converter box. We'll go ahead and reattach the tail light plug into the tail light socket. Now, you see we've got a white wire with a ring terminal. That's our ground wire. There's a metal stud here behind the tail light. We're going to go ahead and remove the nut off of it and use it for my ground wire. With all of our attachments made here on the driver's side, now we need to take our green wire and route it over to the passenger's side. Now, we're over here on the passenger's side, we've got an access panel. We're going to go ahead and open that and it gives us a direct connection here to the passenger's side tail light wiring. So just as we did on the driver's side, we're going to take our test light and locate the wire that powers the right side turn signal. So here on the passenger's side, it's a blue wire with a tan tracer. We can go ahead and peel back some of this tape here, locate our wire and then go ahead and take my green wire. They should end behind the trim panel. This is me routing the passenger's side green turn signal wire. We're going to use a piece of tubing. You can use a piece of wire or remove the panel just as we did on the driver's side. You can see our tubings run up. That's where we gain access to it. We'll go ahead and pull our green wire into place. We're going to remove it from our tubing. Now, as we identified earlier, we want the blue wire with the tan tracer, and we'll use our quick connector to tie them together. Go ahead and take our connector and reattach it to the back of the tail light. Now, the only wire we have left to make a connection is this red wire here with a butt connector already on it. This is going to be for our power wire that's going to run to our battery. So now, what I'm going to do is locate a suitable spot to head out of the vehicle, run the power wire underneath up to the engine area and to the battery. There's a grommet here in the bottom of the car in the rear cargo area that will be perfect for sending our power wire out, so we can send it underneath the vehicle and up to the battery. To run our power wire, first, I'm going to take a utility knife. Cut a hole in the grommet that we've pointed out in the cargo area earlier. I went ahead and pushed up into the cargo area. Now, it's going to feed my battery wire up to it. We'll go back in the cargo area and make our connection. Before we can connect our power wire to the converter box, we need to go ahead and strip the wire back, then connect it to our butt connector. Now, we can go ahead and install our converter box. With the converter box installed, our power wire connection made, we can go ahead and start button things back up and routing our power wire to the front. From routing your power wire, couple ofthings to be careful of. One, you want to stay away from moving components or pinch points that can damage the wire such as the steering or suspension, and two, excessive heat as it can damage the wire also. Now, we can go ahead and pull it out from underneath. We'll run it here to the positive battery terminal. You can see here, there's a nut that we can remove and add a ring terminal to it, but first I want to secure my wire up here, so I use a black zip tie that's provided in the install kit. Now, you can see our wire is much longer than what we are going to need because we still need to add a fuse holder. And to add a fuse holder, first, what we'll do is cut in half. We're going to strip back both sides. One side we're going to add a ring terminal. Crimp it down. On the other side, we're going to add a butt connector. Now, we can trim the extra off of our power wire here, strip it back and add it to our butt connector. Now with our butt connector crimped down, we're ready to go ahead and install it on our battery. With our fuse holder connected and tighteneddown, we can go ahead and install our fuse. Just take one more zip tie just to clean up my wiring here. Secure it. Alright, I'll just take my cutters. Cut off the extra from my zip ties. We're ready to go ahead and reinstall everything. Now, let's go ahead and show you how to use your new 4--pole connector. Remove the side access door. Pull out your 4-pole connection. We'll route it out to your hitcher accessory that you're going to use. When routing it out to the hitch, steer clear away from the latches and hinges as much as possible as they could damage the wire, but closing it against the weather seal ok as it's thick enough that it won't harm it. And there you have it for our Tow ReadyT-One 4-Pole Connector, product number 119176 KIT, on a 2005 Mini Cooper Convertible.