Trailer wiring harness different than tow vehicle??

[jkust]

Hi all, here is my situation. I have a 2000 Oldsmobile Silhouette with factory towing package. I am getting delivery of my new-used Chaparral 183ss on Friday august 8th. The harness on the van has three male and one female prongs/connectors ...but the trailer requires four males and one female to connect up. I assume the fourth prong recepticle on the trailer harness is for the braking system. How do I upgrade/install the correct harness but also keep the old harness capability for my snowmobile trailer without brakes? Any help is really appreciated as we have a vacation planned starting next Tuesday. I really have no idea what is required but prefer to do it myself.

Thank you,

-Jason

 

[reelfishin]

Re: Trailer wiring harness different than tow vehicle??

The easiest thing to do would be to add the brake lead to the truck and make up an adapter harness, if not, just buy and add a 5 wire plug to the truck.
Those plugs will usually interconnect leaving the extra hole unused, you just won't have your brake or brake cancel function.
If the trailer has surge brakes, the 5th wire (blue) gets a feed from your reverse lights, if it's got electric brakes, it needs to get it's output from a brake controller.

 

[wuttja]

Re: Trailer wiring harness different than tow vehicle??

This is an easy adapter to install that makes your flat 4-pole into a flat 5-pole. http://www.etrailer.com/pc-A~20036.htm
The blue wire taps into your reverse light wire to disengage electric brakes when you are backing up. If you don't have electric brakes, then no worries. Good luck!

 

[109jb]

Re: Trailer wiring harness different than tow vehicle??

Before you do anything you need to find out if the trailer has electric brakes or surge brakes. Makes a huge difference. With surge brakes you can just ust the adapter harness like wuttja said, but NOT if it has electric brakes. With electric brakes you have to install a brake controller and the extra wire will connect to this. If you just wire the adapter in to the back-up lightes like you would for surge brakes you will have NO BRAKES going forward, and the brakes will be locked backing up. Even though it sounds like a pain, I would much prefer electric brakes over surge brakes any day. As far as plugging a 4-pole flat on the trailer into a 5-polr flat on the car, no problem. It will plug in fine.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Trailer wiring harness different than tow vehicle??

have the dealer do the van when you pick it up. then get the adapter for the snowmobile. and most 4 prongs will plug into the 5 plug, as mentioned before.

 

[wuttja]

Re: Trailer wiring harness different than tow vehicle??

With surge brakes you can just use the adapter harness like wuttja said, but NOT if it has electric brakes. With electric brakes you have to install a brake controller and the extra wire will connect to this. If you just wire the adapter in to the back-up lightes like you would for surge brakes you will have NO BRAKES going forward, and the brakes will be locked backing up. Even though it sounds like a pain, I would much prefer electric brakes over surge brakes any day.

Thanks for the clarification! I meant surge brakes. I agree with you about preferring electric over surge. When I brake and the trailer engages the surge brakes, it always causes new passengers to jump a bit.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Trailer wiring harness different than tow vehicle??

brake sooner, and easier, it won't klunk.

 

[dingbat]

Re: Trailer wiring harness different than tow vehicle??

brake sooner, and easier, it won't klunk.

And if it klunks you need to bleed the brakes or add fluid to the coupler. There should be minimal bumping and no klunking if the brakes are working correctly.

 

[wuttja]

Re: Trailer wiring harness different than tow vehicle??

I'm not trying to take over the original poster's question, but apparently I need to have my trailer checked out. Thanks for the information, I just figured the 'clunk' was normal. New to this boating stuff!! I do brake very easy and early. I am in no hurry. Checked the oil and it appears to be filled to the proper level so I think a full bleeding and some fresh oil is in order. It's 11 years old, and pretty much was never used until this summer.
Sorry again to the original poster for hijacking your post... back to the wiring harness question...