How to Hook Up Electric Trailer Brakes
- 1). Use wheel chocks to ensure the trailer cannot move. Elevate the trailer tongue by rotating the jack handle clockwise until the trailer chassis is more or less level.
- 2). Inspect the tops of the brake hubs at the back of each wheel and locate the white and blue wires emerging from the twelve-o-clock position. Clean each pair of wires using a ten-to-one dilution of dish detergent and water, then split the wires with a craft knife and use wire strippers to remove 1/2-inch of color-coded insulation from the end of each conductor.
- 3). Trim a similar amount of insulation from one end of the spools of blue and white wire then join them to their color-matched counterparts with a soldering kit, and use a shrink-wrap kit to insulate the joins. Route both the blue and white wires to the trailer tongue and cut them off with wire cutters at the hitch, leaving six inches play.
- 4). Repeat the process for every braked wheel, then strip 1/2-inch of insulation from all the cut ends near the hitch. Solder the white wires together with a single 6-inch-long tail continuing from the multiple join forward toward the tongue, solder the blue wires together in the same fashion, then insulate both multiple joins with the shrink-wrap kit.
- 5). Open the case of the round seven-pin hitch and install the white tail into terminal 1 and the blue wire into terminal 2, tightening down the securing screws with a screwdriver. Strip insulation from the ends of the wires if the terminal screws do not have points. Reinstate the hitch's case and secure all the new wires to the trailer's chassis rails with plastic zip ties.
- 6). Test and calibrate the brake function according to the owner's instructions supplied with the tow vehicle's electronic brake controller.