Trailer Wiring Harness Installation - 2000 Nissan Pathfinder
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How to Install a Wiring Harness for a Trailer on a 2000 Nissan Pathfinder
Today we are going to be installing wiring harness part number 118361 on a 2000 Nissan Pathfinder. And this installation will also apply for the Infiniti QX4 as well. The wiring installation is actually going to be done predominantly on the inside of the vehicle here. What we need to do is, I have actually opened up the rear hatch of the vehicle. Connecting points for the wiring harness are actually located behind the interior panels on both sides of the vehicle, directly behind the tail light assemblies. So the first thing I am going to do is go ahead and take out the six screws holding the rear threshold piece and then pry away the rivets on the sides to gain access to the connectors. We will just set that off to the side for the time being, and I will go ahead and pull back the carpeting.
OK, with the panel pulled back, you can feel the connector. It is actually up through this knockout here. And again, if you basically just trace from directly behind the tail light assembly, it is sitting right up in there. It is really hard to get to from this point. It is right back here, essentially. To make the installation a little bit easier, I am actually going to go ahead and remove the tail lights themselves and pull the wire out through the knockout right behind the tail light assembly. And I will make my connections there. And you can see what I am going to do. I am just going to pull the ground out here, and then there is the connection point for the T-harness. You can see it is going to be a lot easier to make my connection this way.
What I am actually going to do is to go through the opening here and then out through the grommet that I just disconnected. And then we just want to go ahead and disconnect the clip. And you can see, the connector has some tape on it. And there is just a little push tab right there, and you want to depress that. And we just want to plug our harness in line there. And then we just feed the connectors back through the hole, and now they are in position for us to put our plug back into place. And then we can reassemble the tail light assembly. And then we want to mount our converter box as well. You can see on the back of the converter box we have some double-sided tape, so we just want to find a nice, suitable spot to tape that to. Actually, inside this opening there is a nice, flat surface that I am going to go ahead and clean off a little bit with just some basic water, and tape it to there. That will be a nice spot to keep it out of the way.
I want to point out that here on this drivers side there is a ground terminal that we need to mount to a grounding point. And there actually is a factory ground right here at the bottom that we are just going to go ahead and connect into. We are going to remove that screw and place our ground wire on there. Now we are going to route our green and red wire over to the passengers side. We are just going to run this wire underneath here and straight across. And I am going to do the same thing that I did on the drivers side, as far as removing the tail light assembly and pulling the harness out this way and making our connections on the outside of the tail light, since that is a lot easier to do. I am going to set this here for the time being, remove my tail light, and then pull the harness through. And again, I just going to depress the button, put the harness in place, and then feed it back through. We will place our tail light assembly back on. Then we will go back inside the vehicle and secure all these wires.
All right, when securing the wires, just come back across. I am going to go ahead and start here on the passengers side. And again, I want to route it through this groove here. Just kind of get that set up and reconnect our panel. And then kind of set the wire up where you are going to want it. What I am actually going to attempt to do is put the threshold piece back on where we want it to sit in this raised channel area here to keep it from getting pinched. Just kind of set that loosely in place. What we are going to do is, the 4-pole is actually going to be routed underneath the paneling here, and then we will get back on the other side of the vehicle. Make sure our wires are not going to be pinched when we reconnect the interior panel, and then go ahead and put it back on. And again, if we removed this tie-down fastener, we want to put that back on. We will replace the carpeting. And you can see, when you want to go ahead and use the harness, you just pull it out of the trunk area here. And you can close the tailgate on it. The weatherstripping here will keep it from being pinched, so you do not have to worry about that. And then for storage you can just leave it on the inside of the vehicle. This will conclude the installation of wiring harness part number 118361 on a 2000 Nissan Pathfinder.
Sandie
12/28/2020
Everything on my 99 pathfinder is hooked up correctly and grounded properly. I have running lights and brakes but no turn signals. Everything ive found online says i need to find and check 2 10 amp inline fuses after the bcm under the dash but i cannot find them! Please help!!
Jon G.
12/29/2020
From what I could find it looks like there should be a door about where your left knee would be hitting the fascia if you were in the driver's seat. That should be where the fuse box is.
Al Y.
1/15/2013
I have a 2006 Nissan Pathfinder towing a utility trailer. The running lights are no longer working when I connect the 7 pin connector. When I hard wired the connector to the trailer directly the lights work. I also had a friend connect his truck to the trailer and the lights work. I checked with a multimeter the voltage of the pathfinders connector and it is good. Is the running lights drawing too much power, do I need a power converters. thanks
Patrick B.
2/1/2013
I would check ground connections at the trailer connector and the vehicle. It could be that the trailer is grounding through your friends hitch on his vehicle, but not on yours. It would not hurt to check the grounds at each running light as well.
Info for this part was:
Video Edited:
Andrew K
Installed by:
Cole B
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Marriann
4/30/2022
I would like to know where to feed the trailer connector thru so I can attach it to my tow hitch like a factory one would be. I'm not a fan of closing the hatch on it, regardless if the weather stripping protects it.