bkrukow

I am getting sick of not being able to tow a trailer with breaks that a GM or Ford owner pulls. If I hook up to a trailer with breaks they instantly lock up the second I plug the trailer in to the truck. I know its not just me either because there is a huge used car dealer in town that rents out trailers and he has a new dodge of his own that he cant pull his own trailers with. The trailers are brand new so I know there not wired wrong. He had to rewire a trailer so he could pull it with his truck and every time I want to use a trailer I have to use his personal one. Last weekend and this weekend I had to pull a big bobcat on a flatbead. A freind of mine works for a constuction company and we wanted to use one of there bobcats to do some dirt work. Insted of using one of the company trucks to pull it home we thought we would use my truck. When I hooked up to there trailer and hooked up the lights the breaks again locked solid. They have all fords and a few of the gus use there GMs to pull them. They all work fine. Whats the deal? I dont enjoy running down the road with a 10000+ pound trailer with no lights or breaks. Has any one figured out a fix? Thanks.

SuperGewl

OK, are we talking about the 4 prong plug or the 7 way adapter plug? I have never had any problems connecting to various trailers that are towed by various differeent brands of trucks unless they, the owner has done some wiring of their own.
Does your truck have the factory TT option? Have you had any mods done to it? Such as had another 7 pin connector added? As far as the wiring, they are all wired the same, ie the industry standard to the plug so that there will not be any problems as you are stating

pind

The trouble I have found, is that there is an industry standard for pickup truck wiring, which is great, unfortunately, equipment trailers are wired to more closely follow heavy equipment and transport industry standard code. this results in some cross ups for wiring. If you need an adapter to hook up to a trailer, expect some minor difficulties. Mostly with the brakes locking on, which is the result of a power wire on the truck, going to the center, or brake pin, of the equipment trailer. Or, the center pin could be a hydraulic surge brake lockout, or, it could be trailer positive, or it could be...... mahna mahna.

Good luck, and happy frustrations, thats what mine are

alltork

Ditto on what SuperGewl said. If you have factory tow package and are using 7 way round trailer plug your lights and brakes should be working properly with any trailer that was built. My truck pulls same trailer my buddy pulled with his chevy and ford.

SuperGewl

He had to rewire a trailer so he could pull it with his truck and every time I want to use a trailer I have to use his personal one. .

You just answered you r own question and solved your own problem with this statement.
It's only obvious that his truck is wired wrong and he wired the trailer to work with his truck

2broke2smoke

my friends '04 powerstroke is wired the same as our '03

Jeff K

Do you have a brake controller? If you don't, the wire for the electric brakes is hot all the time. I had this same problem with a 99 Powerstroke work truck.

nickleinonen

i towed for the first time with my truck yesterday [borrowed my pop's work trailer] that he pulls all the time with his chevy. it has brakes, but i don't have a brake controller so i took it easy. i didn't have any issues. the trailer is home built/home wired to the industry standard and everything worked good...

kinda forgot i had it back there when i took off from a set of lights next to a ricer. accelarated hard off the lights, and as i went to 2nd from first, there was a bit of a bump in the road that got the rear of the truck a little unsettled, giving me some massive wheel slip ricer looked over oh yeah

bkrukow

He had to rewire a brand new trailer to tow with his brand new dodge identicle to mine. We both have trailer breaks and none of the trailers I have hooked up to work with my truck. Yes all the lights work fine but they dont do much good when I cant pull the trailer with the electical pluged in. I have the 7 pin factory plug and have bought a adapter to go to the 6 pin style on all trailers that I tow. I to came to the conclusion that it had to be the center pin that is constantly hot causing the problem. What I dont understand is why every person I know that has GMs and Fords can pull the trailers fine and the breaks work as they are suposed to and I cant. My truck is bone stock and I have never modifyed the wiring at all. The place I use the trailer from has several trailers that are all real new and NONE of them work behind either of our Dodges except the one he rewired for his personal use. That tels me our trucks are the problem not the trailer. I can pull any camper I want and it will work fine but not a trailer that has to have the addapter. I realize that most of you will say that it has to be the adapter but everyone I know that has a non Dodge truck can pull the trailers fine with the adapter. I went to use a diferent trailer the last 2 weeks to tow a bobcat and I could not hook up the trailer lights on those either. They use all Fords and have no problem. The guy that owns the buisnes tried to figure out what the problem was but just gaveup and rewired the trailer to mach the truck. I am aware of the industrie standards and have even compared wiring digrams from a freinds brand new GMC that I instaled trailer breaks on. They are identical at the conector. I think I will try to hook that truck up to one of the trailers and see if it has the same probleme.

FuzzyDuck

Offhand, it sounds like the adapter.

All the trailers I have towed (save one boat trailer with a 4 pin) have used the 7 pin connector, and that is what my CTD has, as did my prior 2 trucks. Absolutely no problems using 7 pin connectors. The center pin is backup lights, as I recall, and of course is only used on some trailers.

I think the adapter you are using to convert to the 6 pin trailers you mention is likely wired wrong. Even with wiring diagrams, it is often easy to get reversed when they say something like "this view is from the plug end"....

Red1ton

I've hooked up my 7-pin trailer & and my 4-pin trailer to my 04 and have not had any problems at all. I also hooked two former trucks (Ford & Chev.) to the same 7-pin trailer and the 4-pin trailer with out doing any re-wire, and never had a problem at all. Sounds like you might need to take a test light back to your 7-pin and go through the pin's and see if all are correct. Then put your 6-pin adaptor on and re-check again...if the problem is only at the power to brake pin, then you can change that on your 6-pin adaptor and you should be in good shape.
I talked to my nephew who is service supervisor at a RV center and he say's all the 7-pin and 4-pin connectors are wired to the standard color code for all vehicles, through-out the industry.
Hope this may help ya out............good luck

Nevada

AHH HA! The problem isn't really a problem (although it may be a huge inconvenience). There are two, yes count them two standard configurations for six round connectors. The difference is exactly where you have an issue, it is in the location of the "hot" pin. If you check your Reese or other adapter manufacturers catalog you will find two options. Most adapters allow you to change the location of the hot pin if you unscrew the two halves and look at the innards. I carry one of each type.

If you have a local Reese dealer, the standard 7 blade to 6 round pin adapter is part # 74645 and the alternate layout 7 blade to 6 round pin adapter is part # 85216.

The catalog description of the alternate pin layout is as follows:
7-Way blade type terminal to 6- Way round pin adapter with
7- Way stop circuit wired to 6-Way (S) Pin

Check it out, I'm pretty sure it will solve your problem.

bmoeller

The adapter is the problem. I ran into that one time. I had to buy the proper connectors and some wire to make my own. Was also going from the 7 pin RV plug to the 6 pin.

natstayl

As I understand it the feds created a new standard that trailers include a break-away emergency brake engagement powered by a small 12vdc battery mounted to the trailer. Do these trailers in question have the battery? If not, they were mfgd to meet an older standard and probably still have pin 4 as the brake hookup. If they do have the break-away system and battery, pin 2 should be the brakes and it connects directly to the blue wire on the brake controller of the new Dodges as well as Chevys and Fords.
Right now and until the feds require older trailers on dealer lots to meet the new standard, you can buy trailers that may have their brakes wired to pin 4 not pin 2.
I hope the picture helps clearify what I'm saying.

bkrukow

Hay thanks for all the info. I will check into the addapter wiring conversion asap. I was not aware of the 2 diferent 7 to 6 pin converters. I went out and bought a second one a while back thinking the old one had a problem and it was the same. I do balive however that at least the rental ones have the battery powered breakaway. I am sure the ones from the constuction company are old enough that they most likely do not. I dont remember seeing a battery on them. To make things interesting I had a coworker who has a brand new GMC with the exact same brand and model of break controler go out to the rental place and hook on to the trailer that locks up the breaks when I hook up to it. It worked fine. Just like it should. I even used my adapter to make shure it was not the problem. I talked to the owner and he said he did not have time to see why his truck would not work with it so he just bought anouther tiltbed trailer with a 7 pin conector that did. I will try to figure out if I have the wrong adapter.