Trouble Shooting a Tekonsha Voyager Not Activating When You Hit the Manual Override  

Question:

Expert Reply:

Hey Drew! That slide you're pushing on the Tekonsha Voyager item # 39510 is the manual override. If you're pushing that and the only thing coming on is the lights then either your brake controller has gone bad, there's an issue with the 7-way/s, or there's something wrong with the trailer brakes. That slide is supposed to activate the brakes in case of emergency or like your situation testing to them to see if they work.

That green light shows that the trailer is connected so it could be your vehicles 7-Way or the trailer's is corroded or just has something like mud or dirt inside. Take a quick look at those and clean off any debris or corrosion you may find.

The easiest way to rule out an issue with your trailer is going to be connecting it to another vehicle and activating it's manual override. If this doesn't work then you'll need to check your wiring from the harness back to the brakes. Pay specific attention to the ground wire. It'll need to be attached firmly to a bare piece of metal.

You can also check the ground on the brake controller but I doubt it's that. If it's not the trailer or connectors you'll need to replace your Voyager item # 39510. There's no reason it would activate the lights and not the brakes if there wasn't something wrong with it internally. The blue brake controller wire sends both signals.

If you have any additional questions go ahead and throw them into the comment box below.

expert reply by: Jerred H

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Drew F.

5/7/2025

Hi Jarred, Re: Tekonsha Voyager I have completely rewired the trailer, from male 6-way plug to taillights. All is good on that. I even tested the brake magnets and connections for proper resistance. New revelation: The blue output wire shows 12 volts at the controller, whether the trailer is hooked up or not. The green light turns on when I use the hook probe tester but not when I use the voltmeter in line with the hook probe. The other three wires check out correctly. The existing controller is only a few months old, the brakes did not work from the initial installation, and now I have time to evaluate. I have a second controller, brand new, just took it out of the box, and it functions/fails to function exactly as the first one. Two bad controllers in a row? Probably not, but maybe? Any ideas? Aside from bad controllers, the only possibility I can imagine is that I mixed up wires when connecting the 6-prong, but that seems unlikely, as all prongs seem to function as intended when I put a meter on them individually, so I don't know what wires could be reversed. But this may be revealing. Although the blue wire is hot at the controller, the is no voltage at the brake pin in the female 6-way. Your additional help is welcome! Drew

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Jerred H.

5/8/2025

@DrewF You're right it's definitely not the controller. Since you've ruled that out, I recommend checking the stop light circuit. Your brake controller should be connected to a wire that only has 12 volts only when the brakes are applied.

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