Video Transcript for Redarc Tow-Pro Liberty Brake Controller Installation - 2019 Toyota Highlander

Hey everyone. Shane here with etrailer.com. Today I have a 2019 Toyota Highlander. I'm gonna walk through how to install the Redarc Tow-Pro Liberty Trailer Brake Controller. We're gonna be installing this with the Tekonsha OEM Trailer Wiring Harness with seven pole plug. This is what our seven pole is gonna look like once it's installed.

It's gonna give us all of our proper lighting functions as well as our reverse signal. Brake signal, turn signals, your running lights and your reverse light. This is gonna be designed for your trailers with seven pole wiring. The lid on this is going to be spring loaded. So it stays closed when you're not using it.

It's gonna have a nice pull handle on it. So it makes it easy to open. The inner side of the lid is gonna have a foam ring that's gonna help seal right around this edge when it is closed. And that's gonna keep any dirt and debris from getting on your connections. You can see this little tab right here.

This tab is when you have your plug installed inside the connector. This tab, as the lid closes on it it's gonna catch on one of the edges. And it's gonna keep the plug from accidentally coming disconnected. This kit is going to be designed for one for your Highlanders that have a factory tow package but don't have the complete kit which means it doesn't have the seven-pole plug that comes out in the back, but it has the plug inside the vehicle. It's also gonna be designed for to Teconsha Controllers, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you had to use it with a Teconsha controller.

We actually installed a Redarc brake controller in this vehicle, and there is a universal plug that fits the Redarc brake controller. That simply allows you to splice the wires from this connector or from this kit into that connector so that they work together. Now, as far as the installation process on this it's pretty simple and straightforward. Again, as I mentioned before, it's gonna be designed for vehicles that have the factory tow package but not the whole complete kit installed. For the Highlander on the inside, underneath the panels there's going to be a plug. This kit is gonna come so you can directly plug those two together. The rest of it is gonna run outside. You're gonna have wires that run over to your seven pole plug, which will make that connection. And then wires, it run up to the engine compartment. The only thing you have left to do is to run from the inside of the vehicle out and make the connections to the battery. Other than connecting to your brake controller. Now inside of our cab this is all we have. You hooked into a, to concha. You'd have a larger kind of an older style brake controller. You'd have to find somewhere on your dash to put it with this. This gives us all of our connections that we need to control the brakes on our trailer. This is what our brake controller module is gonna look like. This is gonna allow us to, again control the brakes on our trailer from the small little knob that we planted on the dash. Now this can be mounted in any orientation underneath the dash. As long as you don't zip tie it to the factory wiring they will actually learn the direction of travel as you drive. So what our brake controller looks like when it's installed and you can see it takes up a very small footprint when you compare it to some of the traditional type brake controllers. Nice thing about the Redarc not only taking up a small footprint but the main control unit can be mounted in any orientation. Whereas the, your typical brake controller has to be monitored a certain way, in a certain direction. Having this small of a footprint makes it very easy to control. It's gonna give you all the same options as a standard brake controller. You have your manual override whereas you just a push of a button. But the manual override does allows you to apply the brakes on the trailer without applying the brakes in the vehicle. You'll see the numbers on the dial that allows you to adjust the brake pressure. You're applying to the brakes on the trailer depending on your load. So you can see, as I apply the brakes in the vehicle that color changes, which means it's gonna match the pressure that we're seeing in the vehicle. So you'll notice we have an led light that makes it easy to see at night, you'll notice the numbers. This is to allow us to adjust the brake pressure being applied on the trailer, depending on the load that we have. So 10 is gonna be the highest that's gonna be for the heaviest weight. And then of course, one is going to be your lowest, other than zero, which is applying no pressure. Now push on the button that your manual override. That's going to send pressure to the trailer brakes only without applying the brakes in the vehicle. And when turned up to six here. I'm gonna apply the brakes in the vehicle. And you're gonna watch that change colors. You can see how it kind of gradually builds up to, that darker color almost a red dark pink color, almost a dark purple. The higher we go with the number, the more red that color gets. It's kind of a violet color. So it's applying light pressure. Now this is gonna match the pressure that we have. We're playing it from our vehicle. So when I apply the brakes on here it's gonna apply the brakes on the trailer. It's gonna match that pressure for the dial or for the number on the dial that we haven't set it. First thing we need to do. You'd open our hatch. If you have the rubber floor cover, you need to remove it. We're gonna take this back piece. We're going to fold it up. We're gonna come over here on the driver's side, remove this panel. Then you're going to remove your storage department. All we're gonna do we're just going to kind of pull up on it. Once you break it loose or pop it loos we're gonna set it aside. Right over here, we're using a 10 millimeter socket. We're going to remove the nut. That's holding this panel in place. We're going to start pulling this panel up. We're going to work our way across just pooping it loose. There we go. Take this, and we're just going to fold it up. Just like that. Next we need to relocate or two plugs. These are the wires that we're looking for. We're gonna take our wiring harness. We're gonna hook directly into those. We are gonna be using the larger plug. We are gonna take our wiring harness. We're just gonna plug them together. Next, we need to figure out a couple of different things. One, this blue wire has got to go to reverse light circuit. If you want the reverse light circuit hooked up which I think we're gonna be doing it to the reverse light circuit on the very top. So we'll show you how to do that in a minute. We gotta be able to mount or ground wire. I'm gonna try to do it without having to drill a hole. And we're gonna try using some existing stuff. And then of course this bundle of wire has to go out close to the hitch where we're gonna mount the seven pole. This one though, has to run out and up to the front of the vehicle to the engine compartment. So I think what I'm gonna do first is I'm gonna mount my ground wire. I think I'm gonna mount it right here. That should give me enough room mount my module over in this corner. 10 millimeter socket go ahead and move that. Go ahead and install your ground wire on there, and reinstall the nut. In the grommet right down here in the corner. And it comes out right above the plastic panel. The underbody panel around your hitch. If you have already installed your hitch then underbody panel has to be trimmed. So you'll be able to access the wiring. We're going to go ahead and feed, this wire down in there. Now we need to get this, and this outside through, that hole, where that grommet was. Your kit's gonna come with a grommet pre-installed problem we have is this is not gonna be long enough to get from where that grommet is over to the center close to your hitch receiver. So what we're gonna do is this. I took the zip tie off of it, or cut the zip tie off. I'm gonna cut this in half and I'm gonna move that grommet up here so that we have this extra length to get us more over towards the center. Take this move it up here, just like that. Take the rest of this, which we can worry about this. And just a little bit, take the rest of this. We're going to pass it down through that grommet. Now, as far as the grommet, I didn't use the one that came on the wiring harness. I would have had to cut the wire loom and then put it around the wires or shelves. So what I did is I took the factory, plug out, cut the hole out in the center, cut it in half wrapped it around and stuck it back in place. And it fits right in. And so we're gonna mount our converter box and it comes with some two-sided sticky tape. I'm having a hard place to find a flat spot to mount it where I'm not really stretching out my grommet wire. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna mount it on the backside or on the face side. I think I can get it right up in this area right up in here. So really we're just looking for a spot to put it. So we're not stretching wires. We're not gonna damage it when we start putting our panels back in place. That's when I need to get our blue wire ran through a reverse light circuit. I think what I'm gonna do is I'm going to use the one up in the center. The easiest way to get to there, pull up on this panel. We're going to route that wire right behind this rubber piece, all the way up. Hold on our headliner and a rubber boot and runs right to here. You're gonna pull that boot back. There's gonna be, a few red wires in there. You want the two bigger ones. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna test each of these. I have a feeling that's gonna be the biggest one that I have my thumb on now is gonna be my reverse wire. We're gonna go ahead and test both of these to be sure. As I mentioned this bundle is gonna be the thickest red wire where it has somebody putting the car in reverse. We're going to go ahead and test it to make sure. Off, reverse. Okay, so that's gonna be our wire there. Now to get your blue wire through there. If you take a, you can take a small wire hanger something that you can feed it through there. It's going to come out on the hole right underneath your headliner here. Tape it to it and feed your wire up. And then we're gonna test our wire to make sure we have the correct one. Once you determine which wire you're going to be using we're gonna cut it the size. You're gonna have quick splice connector run our blue wire into it. We're gonna route it onto that wire we just tested. Take a pair of pliers. And that connects our reverse light circuit down to our plug re-install or rubber grommet. Once we get this installed, then go ahead and reinstall all of our panels inside our trunk area, and run our wire up to the engine compartment. Now I'm gonna go ahead and route this to the front of the vehicle, get it up into the engine compartment. Let me get it done real quick, and I'll show you how I did it. For my wireless running up to the front. I came out on the backside of the panel here or the front side of the panel. There's an opening. We'll make sure we're staying away from anything hot or moving. I ran over top of all my suspension components my actual all this here it came down and right over here. Emergency brake cable. I zip tied it right to that. 10 millimeter socket took the bolts out. They went along with this plastic panel on this outside here, probably down, took, my wire push it up inside and comes out right here in the front, took an airline tube. If you had pull wire something that you can use to drop down from where your against your firewall on the side of your batteries on which is the driver's side. Drop it down, and I taped to it and I can go up top. I can pull my pull wire up and then we'll bring my wire up right up against my firewall, staying away from anything moving in the engine compartment area. Thanks, we're gonna go ahead and connect the seven-pole connector onto our wires. You're going to take off the electrical tape and you wanna make sure that this tab is facing up and we're gonna hook them into the backside here. So center's gonna be yellow. This larger one's gonna be white. And then it's gonna go red, green, black, brown, blue. We're gonna take our yellow wire. And I actually marked it in the center there. That's for our reverse light circuit. Extra room here. If they're not going in, you should be able to just slide them in there and it's not sliding in and you need to pull it out and turn it. It's only gonna go in there one way. Next you monitor your seven way that comes in your kit. The two brackets has mountains here right now. Do not come with this kit. You can find them here at etrailer. This the top one is a short bracket. It's a no-drill mounting bracket. It's gonna come with the clamp so you can clamp it right around your hitch. It's gonna have two holes in the top. It's gonna come with two screws to mount the seven pole bracket. The seven pole bracket is it's bipolar rack. You can find it here, etrailer. You wanna make sure it's the one that has a slots in it to be able to fit this seven pole plug. It's gonna come with the four mounting screws to mount your seven pole to the bracket. Once you get that installed we're gonna put some dielectric grease on the plug and we're gonna go ahead and plug it into our seven pole. The dielectric grease does not come in your kit but you can find it here, etrailer is gonna help protect your connections with any moisture heavens get in there and help keep it from corroding. Then on where it stays. Once you get your seven pole plug in place, you have all your wires connected. And have a little piece like this. You're gonna feed it through the wires. All of our wires, kind of that in there. This is what it's gonna hold them down in place. Push it down like that. And the place like that, and do dielectric grease plugging into our seven pole. Once you get your wires pulled up into the egine compartment from the back. You're gonna have another set of wires in your kit. It's gonna look like this. And I have a plug on the end. This plug needs to stay inside. If you're using a Teconsha brake controller this is gonna plug right into the brake controller after you get it mounted. We're actually installing a Redarc. So we're not gonna be using the plug but I'm going to go ahead and leave it on for now. We needed to get these four wires through our firewall. On our driver's side, out to the engine compartment. Couple of these wires are gonna be connecting to some of the other wires that we ran from the back of the vehicle. And then the other ones are gonna connect to the battery into a brown. Now would actually be hard for you to actually see me do this because we have to do it from the inside. But if you'll notice where the airline tube is running right through the large rubber grommet around the steering arm. Now that grommet, is very big. So it's not gonna come and talk contact with that steering arm at all. But again, it has to be done from the inside out. It was take a screwdriver, poke it through the outer edge of that grommet. Get it big enough to where you can get a airline tube or something like that through it. Since the airline tube is through it now, we can go ahead and take our wires, tape it to the end of the tube and pull them through that grommet. So I've got all my wires ran up here to the front. I've got them routed in a way and this is gonna take a little bit of planning, from your side. I've got them routed in a way there's gonna be wire that comes in your kit. We can take this once we get everything connected and I'll be able to tuck it down underneath my air box. Something like that to where it's gonna be connected to the negative and positive side of my battery. And it'll look a little more factory. So we just don't have colored wires hanging out all. That being said, we have extra here. I'm gonna cut this one off the same length as these. This tape strip back, ever black or red or blue. We're gonna start with our black. This is the black wire coming from our seven pole plug, and strip it back. Add on one of the heat shrink butt connectors that comes in the kit. I'm gonna add a fuse holder that's marked seven way harness power fuse. Strip back, we're gonna add in the other end of our butt connector. We'll crimp it down. Now we're gonna take the black wire coming from inside the vehicle which is coming from our brake controller. We're repeat that same process, except gonna be using the fuse holder marked brake controller power fuse. We're gonna take a ring terminal comes in the kit. We're gonna add one onto each one of the end of those. We're gonna take a red wire, strip it back add on a heat shrink butt connector. Connect it to the red wire, coming from the back of the vehicle. Did the same thing with the blue wire. We're going to take your heat gun or heat source and shrink up our butt connectors. Once you get your buck connectors, heat shrink. If you really want to, you can put some electrical tape around them, completely up to you. I've got my wires kind of bundled together. Ground wire, I've got loose. Cause I need to hook that to the ground side. Take some wire loom go ahead and place it over my wires. Give it a factory look, a more probably factory look rather than having a bunch of colored wires out. As I mentioned before. Now we've got my wires all covered up or tucked down in there. I'm gonna go ahead and connect them to the positive and ground on the battery and notice that I do not have fuses in my holder either one of the holders. And matter of fact. We'll come back and add our fuses. As we get everything finished up. Our ground wire, once you have your positive gun, go ahead and connect your negative side and your fuses, and you're ready to go or you're ready to test it out. Before we finish our connections in the engine department to the battery we need to hook up our brake controller inside the vehicle. There's a small panel down here on the bottom. It's gonna be one Phillips head screw over here. And one over on that corner. And you're gonna take a small Flathead screwdriver. There's gonna be a little, it's like little clip this little thing right here. Just take a screwdriver and you push right there, and it allows us to pop down. Gonna disconnect this wire here, just push on this little tab, we'll disconnect these. And then we can move this panel out of the way. This is what our brake controller looks like. The Tow-Pro Liberty. We got to find somewhere to mount this. It really needs to be mounted to a solid surface. You really should not zip tied to any factory wiring where it can move around. This is gonna be the wiring, the plug that comes with it. It plugs right into the end here. And these wires connect to the wires coming from the vehicle. Which is the wires we have running in. As I mentioned before, this would go to a Teconsha but it will not work with the Tow-Pro. So what we're gonna do is we're basically gonna cut that plug off and we're just going to tap these wires into it. Now, before we do all that and you determine where you're gonna mount this. The only place I really found them out this right here it's kind of behind the, emergency brake pedal. Right up against the wheel-wall. I'm going to take some self-tappers and I'll get that mounted on there. Now I already the rubber paneling back here. I already sliced it and then put my finger back there. I wanna make sure there wasn't any wires running underneath that and I wasn't going to damage anything. But essentially what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna Mount this here. That'll like that. My plug coming in from inside the vehicle I'll be able to take this, splice it into my other one. And then I can tuck everything right underneath the carpet right here. Then the only thing left to do need to connect the cable for the other side, which goes to the brake controller which we're gonna mount up on the dash. And we'll do that here in just a little bit. I'm gonna go ahead and connect this. I'm gonna cut these wires down a little bit. Really don't need them that long. And I'm going to cut this wire down. Really not gonna need it this long either. Give myself a good idea where I'm gonna cut them. Can we get that cut off. Leave my wire loom a little bit long there, so we can cover the remainder of this. Once we get it connected. Now this is gonna take some need some butt connectors which do not come in your kit. You can find some here at etrailer. Before connecting these two plugs together sets a wire together. You're just gonna match them color for color. So we're gonna mount ours in one of the dummy plugs here and they just pop out. The biggest thing is to make sure that you have enough distance that when your brake controllers in there it doesn't interfere with anything on the back side. Now these plugs without this is not going to fit inside here. You'd have to modify this quite a bit and it probably won't stay in there if you do modify it. So you make a plug to make the two tickets place that will fit right in a slot. And it's made for the Tow-Pro and Tow-Pro Elite brake controllers. So you'll slide it in like this. You're gonna have a nut, put it on like that. We're just gonna hand tighten this turn it clockwise and take our knob, put the zero to very top center and what you want. And you want to be able to do that. If you can do that. Tighten the nut down a little bit more cause this is going to be your manual override you to be able to do that. Now from here, we're gonna take her cable go ahead and connect it from here, we're gonna feed the other end through the hole and out through the bottom of the dash. And then we'll connect it to our main unit that we mounted, down on the floor. Take this guy. We're just going to push it into place until it snaps. Look like a factory brake controller. Take this connected into our main unit long all of our wires kind of hide them up underneath the dash and then we'll reinstall our lower panel. Last thing we need to do is install our fuse into the slot for towing. So right next to our battery, we have our fuse panel. You're going to see a 7.5 amp fuse 7.5 amp fuse with a slot in the middle. The 10 amp fuse that comes in your kit slide in right there. Now we're gonna test out our seven pole plug and our brake controller to make sure our seven pole plug is getting power from the brake controller, as well as each one of our turn signals and our reverse signal. We have a brake lights from the vehicle. Right turn, left turn, running lights, reverse. And then of course, trailer brakes. That's going to do it for a look at and installation on the Redarc Tow-Pro Liberty brake controller on our 2019 Toyota Highlander..