To see if this custom-fit item will work for you please tell us what vehicle you'll use it with.
This is one of our favorite brake controllers, with flawless braking and a tiny dash knob that looks like it came straight from the factory. It's so easy to adjust your settings or activate manual override.
Features:
Specs:
Note: Pick up a universal mounting panel to give your installation a professional look! 331-TPSI-001 - sold separately
Adjusting the braking settings on the Tow-Pro Liberty is super simple. To get more power output - the maximum amount of power that will be applied to your trailer's brakes - rotate the knob clockwise toward 10. To decrease the power output, rotate it counterclockwise toward 0.
When you apply the tow vehicle's brakes, the knob will change from blue to red to signal that the trailer brakes are being activated. The higher the braking power output, the deeper the red that you will see.
To engage manual override, simply press the control knob. This will activate the trailer's brakes and brake lights independent of your tow vehicle, great for stopping sway or controlling your trailer's momentum in an emergency.
When you are calibrating the brake controller for the first time, the LED lights will signal your progress.
You'll start by braking 20 times or so to let the unit learn its orientation and the direction of travel. You don't need to have a trailer connected for it to calibrate; the only difference is that the knob won't illuminate at all. If your trailer is connected, the LED light will flash green/blue as it calibrates. When the display turns solid blue, initial calibration is complete.
Once done, the unit will remain calibrated. If recalibration is required, it will happen automatically and without LED indication.
The Liberty has almost no mounting restrictions. It comes in 2 pieces: the main unit and the control knob. The main unit mounts out of sight and out of the way. You don't have to worry about dinging your knee on a bulky brake controller or interfering with your vehicle's airbags.
The control knob can be installed in any convenient spot that's easy for you to see and access. This can be a blank switch panel, an open spot on your center console, or wherever there's space on your dashboard. A universal mounting panel is included to ensure a clean, from-the-factory look. Custom-fit panels are available for certain vehicles as well. Before you do any drilling, be sure there's enough clearance behind the dash for the entire knob to install!
Once you've decided where you want to put the control knob, you'll need to find a good place to install the main unit. Your only restriction is the 3' cable connecting the main unit and the control knob. Securely mount the box using screws, double-sided tape, or zip-ties (not included). A mounting kit (RE67FR - sold separately) is also available for the Tow-Pro Liberty. Do not attach the module to wiring or cables that can shift as you drive!
Then plug the custom-fit harness right into your vehicle and the brake controller and you're done!
Note: If you don't already have a 7-way plug at the back of your vehicle, take a look at our exclusive 7- and 4-way brake controller installation kit (ETBC7 - sold separately).
Proportional braking means that your trailer brakes mimic your tow vehicle's brakes. If you slam on the brakes in your vehicle, your trailer brakes will activate with the same intensity; if you brake lightly, your trailer brakes lightly too. The trailer's braking is in proportion to your vehicle's braking. This saves wear and tear on the tires and the brakes on both your vehicle and trailer.
The Tow-Pro Liberty uses an internal 3-axis accelerometer to sense how your vehicle is braking so it can send the right amount of braking power to your trailer. It measures the inertia of your tow vehicle and activates the trailer's brakes to slow at the same rate. The result is uniform braking across your towing setup. No push-pull action - just smooth, proportional braking every time.
Alternate Instructions
California residents: click here
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hello neighbors, it's Brad here at etrailer. And today, we're taking a look and installing the Tow-Pro Liberty proportional brake controller on a 2016 Ram 1500. Now, this is what our brake controller looks like when it's installed and you can see, it takes up very little real estate. And in fact, we're able to find a nice little pocket here and it's gonna be super accessible for the driver to actually adjust and manually override on the brakes. And that's gonna be really great because normal brake controllers kinda sit down here where your knees are, and generally you just kinda bump them when getting in and then sometimes reaching down to actually do the manual override can kinda be cumbersome. And that's the great part about the Redarc is small space but also very easy to use.
So our blue light indicates that we have our trailer actually hooked up. So that's kinda nice, just to kinda let you know that it does have a solid connection. Now, you can adjust the gain and you'll see that it's gonna illuminate the numbers. So if you have a heavier trailer, you can kind of go up the scale of numbers or a lighter trailer, you can go lower. Zero's gonna be no braking, so that's not gonna apply the brakes.
Now, the great part is this is gonna be proportional and there's no delay. So, when you slow down, the vehicle can kinda sense the G force in the module and apply the brakes correctly with the vehicle. And that way, it's not overpowering it. Now, you can also set the gain however you would like. And when you actually push on there, you're gonna see that it's gonna change color for the intensity.
So, as we go lower, it's kind of a cooler color. You got your blue to purple. And then eventually, if you go all the way, that's gonna be a bright red. And you'll also see when the brakes are applied as well. Now, as you hold on the pedal, it's gonna show how hard it is.
So, if I just lightly press, it's just lightly changing. And then the longer you hold, the darker or brighter red that color is going to get. This is gonna be a great option for those of you that just want a simple, clean looking brake controller that's not gonna take up a bunch of space. And honestly, if you pick up the harness, the pigtail adapter, it's gonna make this plug and play and you can have this installed pretty quickly, and you'll never have to worry about bumping your knees on that brake controller again You can mount it exactly where you want it and that way you kind of have that custom customizable location rather than a large brake controller where you're kind of limited to underneath your steering wheel. So as far as that installation goes, again, it's very easy and we're actually gonna show you how to do that right now. To get our Redarc installed we're gonna be using a pigtail adapter and this is gonna be specific to the OEM towing plug on the vehicle. Now it is going to be pretty easy to just plug and play. There's also the option if you just pick up the normal just Liberty, you can actually splice into those wires but this really just makes it a lot easier. Now you can pick this up as a combo with the brake controller. So using our fit guide, it's gonna determine the proper plug and it's gonna include the actual brake controller but you can actually get this individually if you like as well, but definitely worth doing. It's just gonna make the installation that much easier. You won't have to worry about splicing or any connections coming loose over time. All of our components are really gonna live underneath the dash here, and you really wanna plan out where you want to mount your brake controller. And that's the great part about this. It's very small and that way you can kind of pick wherever you want. But a lot of times I try to find spots that, you know if you do drill a hole and over time you don't really like that location, it's easy to replace. So the bezel that goes around the gauge cluster, that seems to be a pretty good option. It's gonna be right there where you want it but we are gonna have to get all of our stuff plugged in before feeding up there. So let's go ahead. We'll start opening up the plastics here and that way we have some access to underneath. And underneath here you're gonna actually see there's a seven millimeter bolt. It actually has a Phillips head. So you can use a screwdriver or a seven millimeter socket here. And it looks as if there is two of them. So we'll get this one off first. And then there's one kind of over here by the center console. And you're gonna wanna hold on to all your hardware. It's gonna make it a lot easier for reinstallation. Now, the hood latch is attached to a bracket here but we should be able to just pop this off and kind of set it aside. So just kind of pulling out, I can hear the clips already and I'm just gonna work my way up until we get the rest of this out. And then we have, we can kind of just set this down. That's gonna gain us this access and what we're gonna be looking for, since we have our pigtail, we're gonna be looking for the male end of this plug. So I'm gonna go under there, find it and we'll be able to get this clipped in. So as we pull that panel down we actually see there's gonna be two plugs here, and this one looks to be the one that we're looking for. So we'll just go ahead and take our plug here, get that snapped in place, and now I'm gonna kind of just continue getting everything attached here. And that way we can kind of have everything bundled. There's gonna be plenty of extra wire here to kind of route wherever we need. But again, I'm gonna be using this bezel here so I can kind of get everything put together and then we can work on getting that actually mounted up. So grabbing our actual module here can be pretty easy to just pop in place. Now we have this ethernet-style cable here. We'll just go ahead and plug it into the end of your actual module. And then the other one is going to be plugging into the back of the brake controller itself. So what I'm gonna need to do here is actually get our bezel out so I can get this in place and then we can plug it all together. Now to take this bezel off, if you are choosing to mount it right about here, you're gonna be using a small torque spit. In fact, it's gonna be a T20. There's four screws total, you're gonna see two are pretty easy to get to. The other two are kind of recessed a little bit but I'm gonna go ahead with my T20, get those removed and then we can pop this panel out. With those four screws out, you can kind of just pull down and you're gonna see these little kind of spots here that'll be a little bit taller. So we'll have to kind of work those out and that's gonna allow us to kind of get the rest of this popped out. It does have some clips down here so just gonna pull straight out here, and that is removed. So as you can see, there's a nice little pocket here and it's gonna be big enough to actually mount this up, and that way it's right next to where the driver's controls are. They can easily access it. And there's also space here to be able to put this in place then it's not gonna make any, it's not gonna have any issues with running into things. Sometimes when you mount these up, it's hard to see how far back you can go and then they don't fit well. This seems to be a perfect little pocket. Pull the bezel out. We can kind of start to plan out exactly where we want it. Now you're kind of limited a little bit but this pocket allows us to really kind of get exactly where we want it. So what we're gonna be doing is finding a drill bit, 3/8 is pretty close here, and that's gonna be about the same diameter as the knob, cause that's what's gonna be poking through. So I'm gonna go ahead and find my center mark here where I'm pretty happy with it. And then just go ahead and make that hole. So as it kind of sits right here, I'm gonna say right about here is gonna be a good spot. So let's go ahead and get this drilled through. We're just kind of doing a test bit here, this fits nice and snug so that's gonna be perfect to actually get that tightened into place. Now, this little section here that's gonna be the light that illuminates the actual dial. So we're gonna need to drill a small eighth of an inch hole as well. And I think the best way to do this to kind of get it aligned properly is you can actually take this ring here, and I'm gonna put this in place and make sure it's kind of aligned how we want it. And then from there I'm just gonna use a small pick and that way I can kind of designate where I'm gonna be drilling. So now with the hole marked, I'm gonna go ahead with a small drill bit and get that drilled out. I might have to do just a little bit of cleaning of that hole, but we should be able to get this in place. Now, there might be some flashing here on the hole, on both of them actually so you're gonna wanna go back and just kind of clean that out. That way it can slide in there nice and easily and sit flush. So we can actually take this ring and you're gonna see it's got little inset piece but I've drilled it out enough to kind of just pop into that hole. That way it's gonna stay in place for us. So once we have this kind of in place, I'm just kind of giving it pressure on the backside. We'll just take this collar and slowly tighten this down and that's gonna thread onto the actual brake controller here. Once everything's kind of aligned here just put a little bit of pressure on the actual brake controller. I'm just using a 12 millimeter socket. So once you have that tightened down we have our light in place. This is facing up and I've just gone ahead and just tightened it down until that 12 got pretty tight. It should hold that in place. You don't wanna crank it too hard just because that can cause some plastic cracking here. So what you'll do next is actually take the knob and I turn it all the way counterclockwise, and that way we know where our zero mark is. I'm then gonna find the zero here on our dial. And I'm gonna just place that right exactly where that notch is so that way it indicates exactly where we have it when we are applying the different pressures here or again on the break. So now that we have this in place we just need to route our wires up and make the connection here. I've mounted it up here and I've just kind of tidied up the wires and using the actual twist ties that came with the other wiring, I kind of just secured those and then you zip ties to mount the box. Now, good thing about this box is you can kind of mount it in any orientation. So whatever works best for you, cause once you calibrate it's gonna find its home. Just make sure that it is secure and zip ties are generally gonna be good enough for that. So with that bezel out, you can see there's quite a large opening here, and there's really nothing in the way. So we'll just pass this ethernet cable up and then we'll just make our connection onto our actual brake controller. Once that's snapped in, I'm just gonna give it a quick push just to make sure it's working. Blue light, and that's a good sign. So now I can actually get our bezel back in and our screws back in place as well. So now we can put our under steering wheel panel back up, just kind of slide the ignition over the actual keyhole there. And then, let's kinda get that in place. You can kind of work your way down. It should pop the clips in and then we're just gonna put that seven millimeter screw back in place. Speaker 2 ThoseYeah, and now we'll put those seven millimeter screws back in place. Now that's pretty much it for the install, but before we use the brake controller, we're gonna need to calibrate it. So we're gonna take this out on our test course and I'll show you how to calibrate yours. So now we actually are out on our test course here and you're gonna see a blue and green flashing. And what I'm gonna do is just kind of a series of just kind of normal driving, kind of get up to 20 miles per hour, show, stop. But as you drive, it's basically gonna just kind of find that three axis in the control. It's gonna find that sweet spot to where it's all centered up and it's gonna know it's home. And once it does that, it's gonna turn a solid blue. So just kind of drive around, slowly hitting your brakes here and there just to kind of allow that three axis to kind of move around and really figure out where it's at. And once you do probably three to four stops on the brake, you should be able to see this turn solid blue. And if it doesn't do it within those first few stops, just keep doing it and you'll see eventually, it will become a solid blue. So there we have it. Ours is that solid blue that we're looking for and you can push the button to kind of illuminate it a little bit more. And that means that we're calibrated. So at this point, we're ready to actually hook up to our trailer and start using our brake controller. And that was a look in installation of the Redarc Tow-Pro Liberty proportional brake controller on a 2016 Ram 1500..
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