Video Transcript for A Closer Look at the Dexter Trailer Breakaway Kit Replacement Breakaway Switch with Cable and Pin

Hi, I'm Daniel with etrailer, and today, we're gonna take a look at the Dexter replacement breakaway switch. You definitely want all your components working on your flat tow setup to make everything safe, and one of the components is gonna be your breakaway switch, and this is going to allow your vehicle to come to a complete stop in the event of a catastrophic failure. If anything disconnects here, this will pull and stop your vehicle. And as you can see, the old one is so smashed that I can't pull this out, so getting a replacement part for this is definitely needed so you're staying safe. And this new one is gonna be exactly the same as your old one. And the best part is, you don't have to replace your entire braking system.

All you have to do is put your new breakaway switch in place, and you can actually splice into the old lines, if they're accessible. Most of the time, if you're needing this kit, you're gonna replace your existing breakaway switch. Our neighbor today has a busted one, so we'll just get this removed first. Chances are, this is gonna be attached a variety of different ways on your vehicle. Ours is just bolted on, so you just wanna remove this however it's attached.

(driver whirring) Now, our new one is gonna be exactly the same. It's gonna have that orange and black wire, and this is going under our belly pan here, so I'm gonna just go back here, cut these, and splice in our new breakaway switch. I'll just snip these two wires and get this old one pulled out. And I'll take our new switch, I'll take those wires, and I'll just poke 'em through that same hole and get 'em spliced in the back, here. Before I do that, I'm just gonna pull it all the way in and get this mounted up.

I'll go ahead and tighten this down, and you just wanna make sure that this is straight and definitely wanna make sure that nothing's gonna be in front of it so this can function properly. (driver whirring) Now that we got it mounted, I'll just take our wires and line 'em up with the wires that we cut. Now, I'll take my wire strippers and strip both of these wires. I'm gonna grab a heat shrink butt connector. Now, this won't come with your kit, but they're always really good to grab because you can apply a heat source to 'em and they'll shrink around your wire.

And that'll just be good so water can't get in there and corrode where you spliced in that. Now, before we start splicing wires, I'm going to put the front end into our breakaway switch, and this will just ensure that it doesn't try and start activating when we connect our wires. Now, once you crimp it down, I like to give it the old tug test. I'll just tug on both ends of the wires to make sure nothing's loose. Once you've done that, I'll grab a heat gun and get these shrunk down. (heat gun blowing) Our kit will come with a long, metal braided cord. And usually this won't reach, and usually you will already have one for your old one, so you're gonna wanna connect that to there. You don't want this dragging on the ground, so we'll just get that snipped off. And the last thing to do is hook it up and test it out, so I'll just pull this out. That was a look at the Dexter replacement breakaway switch. Now, if you have any further questions about any of the components in your flat tow setup, then please feel free to reach out to us at etrailer. But other than that, thanks for watching.