Wiring Harness Installation - 2004 Mazda Tribute

Products Featured in this Video

Installation of a Wiring Harness on a 2004 Mazda Tribute

Today we are going to install part number 119175 from Tow Ready, and we are going to install this on a 2004 Mazda Tribute. What is going to happen is we are going to have to get behind the tail lights. We are going to attach four wires and a ground on the drivers side, and then run the passengers side wire underneath the bumper and then up to the other tail light. So we will go ahead and begin by taking off the tail lights of the vehicle. OK, for now we will just go ahead and disconnect the tail lights. What we are going to do first is actually install the ground screw into the sheet metal right here, and then we will use that for a ground for our tester. Then we will go ahead and start testing the wire functions.

Then we will go ahead and turn on the left-turn signal. We will start touching inside of here to see which one is which. So we know that the green with the white tracer is our turn-signal circuit, so we will go ahead and hook up our wires to that. Yellow is going to be left turn. We are going to use a Scotch lock to make our attachment. You can use any form you like, but this seems to work the best. Then we will go on to our next circuit, which will be the running-light circuit. OK, we have verified that the brown wire right here is our running-light circuit, so we will go ahead and make our connection to that. Next we will check for our brake signal, and all that requires is just holding on the brake pedal. And that verifies that our light green wire will be the brake circuit. So we will attach our red wire to the brake. Then we will take our ground wire and run it to the ground screw that we just had. Next we will take our converter box here and we will attach it to the sheet metal below the tail light here. It is a little bit of a flat area, so we can go ahead and attach to that - it should be enough for it. Then we go ahead and reinstall the tail light itself.

All right, now we will go down to the bottom of the car and start routing our wires across. And the rest of this we can simply bundle up and leave off the excess for what you need for your trailer, basically. Then we will just run it out to our chain loop here, and we will just store that out of the way for now. All right, next we will run our green wire. We are going to follow the same path as before, except we are going to go all the way across, behind the bumper. And honestly, at this point right now, I can tell that this is going to be a little bit short, so we are going to add a short extension of wire to it to get up to the tail light. We are just going to add a piece of scrap wire, and we will do that using a butt connector. And we will seal that up with some electrical tape. OK, and then we will just go ahead and push this back up into this cavity up here, and then we will reach down and pull it out. We will go ahead and pull our wire out, and you can tell it is just a little bit shy of reaching, so it is a good thing we had that extra bit of wire.

Now we will go ahead and test the wires again for our turn signal. OK, it looks like the right turn is going to be white with a blue stripe on it. We will just go ahead and make our connection to that. And at this point we can go ahead and take up any extra slack we need to maybe zip-tie it to the harness here some more, and then reinstall our tail light assembly. And that pretty much covers the install of part number 119175 from Tow Ready.

Mazda Hitch Installations

Trailer Hitch Installation - 2003 Mazda Tribute
Trailer Hitch Installation - 2008 Mazda CX
Trailer Hitch Installation - 2006 Mazda 6
Trailer Hitch Installation - 2009 Mazda CX-9
Trailer Hitch Installation - 2008 Mazda 5
Trailer Hitch Installation - 2009 Mazda 6
Trailer Hitch Installation - 2008 Mazda Tribute
Trailer Hitch Installation - 2004 Mazda Tribute
Trailer Hitch Installation - 2007 Mazda CX-7
Trailer Hitch Installation - 2007 Mazda 3
Trailer Hitch Installation - 2003 Mazda MPV Van

Wiring Help

Wiring for towing
Questions and Answers

Trailer Hitch Wiring Help - Videos

Testing and Troubleshooting a Modulite Vehicle Wiring Harness
Trailer Wiring Harnesses Troubleshooting
T-One Wiring Harness Explanation
Testing for a Correct Ground Connection Demonstration
Circuit Testing for Vehicle Wiring
5 Wire vs 4 Wire System Demonstration

Ask the Experts

Do you have a question about a product or how something works? With thousands of product installations and troubleshoots under our belts, we don't just sell this stuff, we know how to install and use it. Just type your question in the box below.

It may be helpful to include the year, make, and model of your vehicle if you have a question about a custom fit product.

Name:

Contact email:

Subject:

How can our experts help?