Today on This Old Trailer, we are going to install part number HM20001 from Hopkins. This is their break-away kit with charger. The first thing we need to do is go ahead and find a place to install the actual battery box itself. When we mount the battery box, we want to keep it close to the front of the trailer as best as possible but also in a good spot where we can have easy access to it in case we need to do some maintenance. We will probably just clamp it in place and mount it right here. Double check the length of our wires. We should be good. Our blue wire will go to the break-away switch. So we will just go ahead and run it up towards the front. And these two wires here, the black and the white, will be run to the wire harness on the trailer. Alright, we are going to use the fasteners that come with the kit. We are just going to drill it straight in to the frame. Now this head on here is actually a 10 millimeter, so you want to have something you can attach it to and then run it to your drill. 0:56
Once we have the hardware installed, it would be a good idea to run over them again and just snug them down. Next we will go ahead and install our break-away switch. We will put it right in the center. That way the trailer has plenty of room to move around without pulling the safety cable. Alright, at this point we can go ahead and start connecting our wires. What we are going to do is take the blue wire from the battery box and we will run it out to the pin box and run that to the blue wire on the break-away switch. You can use any kind of connector you want, but we are going to be using butt connectors. Alright, let us go ahead and strip our wires back. We will take our black wire that is coming out of the break-away switch, this is going to be connected back to a trailer harness to the wire that handles electric brakes. Use a separate piece of short wire to go ahead and extend our black wire off the switch. 1:56
Continue to run our wire towards the back. We will go ahead and open up the sheath on our wire harness here. And we will go ahead and connect this back to the blue wire. Alright, now we did some prior testing on our trailer and we know that the brake wire is going to be blue. Let us go ahead and separate that out. So what we are going to do is cut our wire in half. We are actually going to use a butt connector to make our connections. Run these two in to one side and then it will go back in to our blue wire. OK, next we will deal with the two other wires that are coming out of the battery box. We have a white wire and another black wire. Now this smaller gage black wire is going to connect up to the 12 volt power supply that is provided in the wire harness. So this truck has a 12 volt power supply that is ran to black already because we checked that as well. And we will just do the same thing once again. We will just cut it and splice in to it. 3:05
Alright, we will add a ring terminal to our white wire and we will run that straight to the frame for ground. Run it straight to ground. And we will use another self-tapping screw to do that. We will be using a number 14. Alright, everything is installed now. The last thing we need to do is go ahead and tape everything up to make the wires nice and neat. OK, with that our install is finished. And there you have it for part number HM20001 from Hopkins.
Questions and Comments about this Video
The best method for testing a breakaway braking electric brake system. How exactly do the brakes function when the pin is pulled from the switch in a breakaway system?Will the brakes lock up or is there a racheting effect that increases pressure on the drums to slow
comment by: Andy T - 9/18/2012
The easiest and best way to test a break away system would be to pull the pin and make sure the trailer can't move by hand. You may also be able to hear the the magnets grab onto the drums. A break away system is essentially an open circuit until the pin is pulled. When the pin is pulled, the switch closes and completes the circuit. At that point the magnets draw full power and will stop the trailer sharply. Whether or not they lock up depends partly on how the brakes are adjusted and the load, but there is no brake controller on the system that regulates the power or a ratchet system to incrementally adjust. The brakes get everything the battery on the break away circuit can provide. The idea is that a trailer that has come free needs to be stopped as quickly as possible. Let us know if we can be of further help.
Patrick B - 9/18/2012Tow Ready Trailer Break Away Kit Installation
Today we are going to cover the installation of a breakaway kit. The function of a breakaway kit is in case the trailer unfortunately breaks away from the truck or the car. What will happen is the breakaway kit will pull a plunger, basically an electrical switch, that will send power via the battery to the brake axles so the trailer wont be free to run off into the ditch, and it will just slow down the trailer as soon as possible. That is the function of a breakaway switch. And now we will go ahead and install one. What we have here is basically a trailer frame, obviously not a whole trailer. But we are going to cover this as a generic install. No matter what brand you are using, they all install pretty much the same way. In this demonstration we will be using a part from Tow Ready, Part Number 20048.
