Trailer Wiring Harness Installation - 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan
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How to Install a Trailer Wiring Harness on a 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan
Today on this 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan we are going to install part number 118552 from Tow Ready. This is their T-One wiring harness. The first thing we need to do is get access to the tail lights because the T connector attaches behind both tail lights so open up the hatch and start on the driver side tail light and work our way over to the passenger side. There are two screws here that we need to unbolt and our tail light should come right off. Our T connector is going to connect up to the black one right here and there is a little lock to unlatch it so you have to push that backwards and then push down this part right here, this little button and it should come apart. To make things easier we are going to remove the whole light so we are going to do the same thing for the bottom connector too, however this will not be used by the wiring harness. 00:55
We are going to take our 4-pole harness and we are going to it through and out the bottom. We are also going to do the same with the other half of the T connector with the green wire and that is going to go down just as well. Next we will make our connections to the wire harness or T-One connector. This one, the black connector, was for our running light circuit and turn signal circuit and it will be our brake light too. We are going to plug those two together and then our other half will go right back to the tail light. We also have a ground wire which we are going to attach straight to the sheet metal right here. The next thing we are going to deal with is mounting our module and we are going to adhere it to the sheet metal just below the bumper cover line and we are going to clean it off first. Once it is dry you can use the double sided tape and stick it right to it. 02:00
Next we will deal with the red wire. This is the power supply wire that we ran up to the battery in the vehicle so the kit comes with a 10 gauge wire that we will connect to this and run it down the bottom as well. We are going to use the supplied butt connector to make our attachments. Again we will take the other half and it on through. At this point we can reattach the tail light and it is going to be green to green, lock it in to place and then make our T-One connection and it is going to be black to black also and it has got its own lock and we can put everything back together. Lets go beneath the vehicle behind bumper and we will start routing our wires to the hitch and over to the passenger side tail light. We will start off with our green wire and we are going to route that behind the bumper cover all the way across. We are going to let that hang for now and do the same thing with the 4-pole harness and we will tie that off at the safety chain loop. We will use some zip ties to secure our wires and take up some of the excess. Now remove the tail light on the passenger side. The same as before, we will remove it. We will use a piece of wire to pull the wire back up through. The same as before, we will make our connections, push them together, our T-One plugged into the factory harness and the other half will plug into the light. We can install the light now. Push everything shut, take them and make sure you pull up all the slack out of here because the wire does get close to the exhaust, make sure you take up the slack and that way it does not fall back down and touch your exhaust and cause a short. 04:55
We are done with the tail lights, now lets go back underneath the vehicle and run the power wire up to the battery. We ran the power wire up to the front and we snuck it behind the hitch and we zip tied off to certain locations like the hanger for the brake lines and just continued our way up front. We will pull our wire up from the bottom. When you pull it up and make sure it stays away from anything moving like the steering components or the suspension. We will pull it up right here and cut off a little of our excess length and just let it sit for now and we will install our fuse holder. The fuse holder is a loop, we can cut that in half. We will add our butt connector to one side and the ring terminal to the other. Now take the power wire and connect it to the butt connector. I think what we will do is zip tie the wire and the fuse holder to this harness right here. There is a hole through the fuse holder that we can run our zip tie through too. The next thing we want to do is make the attachment to the positive terminal. It is a good idea when you work with batteries to disconnect the negative terminal first and then you can work on the positive. We are all reconnected now, install the fuse. We have got the fuse installed, lets go over to the back of the vehicle and test the wiring with the light tester. We will test the 4-pole, we are going to use the light tester. Take the ground and clamp it to the bare end with this white wire and we will try out the running lights first which will be brown. Then try the left turn signal which will be yellow. Then right turn which will be green. Then the brake signal which will be both yellow and green. It looks like we are good to go, now we can try it on a trailer. That will finish our install of part number 118552 from Tow Ready on our 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan.
James
4/1/2014
why is this kit needed? why is there a need for a power wire? is there a simpler kit?
Patrick B.
4/3/2014
The power wire is needed because most Grand Caravans are now produced with LED tail lights. The circuits for these LED lights do not have enough current capacity to support the light draw on a trailer. The extra wire run up to the battery supplies the power needed. It also doubles as a safety measure for the vehicle. If the trailer were to have a short circuit, the extra current draw would be on the new power wire and the vehicle lights and wiring would not be affected. Currently, there is not a simpler aftermarket trailer harness kit for the 2010 Grand Caravan that does not have a separate power wire that needs to be run to the battery.
Info for this part was:
Test Fit:
Joe V
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Randy B
Test Fit:
Joe B
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Brent H
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Robert C
Test Fit:
David F
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Zack K
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Andrew K
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Jacob T
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Dustin K
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Sue W
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Chris R
Installed by:
Cole B
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Alan C
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Zach D
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Jonathan Y
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Buzz
8/23/2014
The kit worked great! Easy installation and the video really helped. My ONLY suggestion would be make the red wire off the module longer. Once the module is attached inside, it is kinda short to play with,Delivery was good tooThanks!