installing wiring harness on tacoma pickup


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Old 10-05-17, 05:38 PM
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installing wiring harness on tacoma pickup

I easily pulled this trailer with my 1993 Ford CV (crown victoria) for years and connected the Ford wiring from a hobbie-brand, plug-in connection I stored inside the trunk to the trailer plug. The CV has moved to a new owner and now I want to pull the trailer with a 2003 Toyota Tacoma. I removed the hobbie connection and wiring from inside the CV trunk and will connect it to the Tacoma under the truck bed. I have installed a Reese pro series hitch (model number 51108) on the Tacoma. Have any of you installed a hobbie-brand electrical connection to your hitch on a Tacoma or connected the connector to the Tacoma body? I thought you might have a better idea than I do for this connection installation. Thanks.
 

Last edited by LKV1; 10-05-17 at 05:40 PM. Reason: mis-spelling
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Old 10-05-17, 06:37 PM
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Older vehicles had a common brake/flasher bulb setup which made 4 wire trailer connections fairly easy. Now most vehicles use a flasher filament separate from the brake bulb which means a conversion box is used to convert a 5 wire vehicle to a 4 wire trailer.

Are you looking for an actual plug into the factory harness or a generic convertor box ? They both use the box but the factory type should intercept an existing harness plug.

This link illustrates using the factory wiring harness with no cutting involved. You can change the 4 pin flat plug to match your connector.
etrailer/install-trailer-wiring-2003-toyota-tacoma-118379.aspx
 
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Old 10-06-17, 06:31 PM
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Pete: Thanks for the help. I did not know I was going to have to abandon my trailer male connector and my towing vehicle female connector. I was going to hard wire the towing vehicle wiring into my female wiring harness. I guess that will not work. thanks for getting me back on track.
 
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Old 10-07-17, 12:05 AM
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You can still use your four pin connectors but it gets converted at the vehicle. The four pin plug stays on the trailer and the car vehicle end gets attached to the convertor.
 
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Old 06-25-18, 07:24 AM
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Pete: I have a uhaul 4-wire flat converter. Son says it worked well when he removed it from an older Tacoma. The left side turn and stop trailer lights do not work. Right is A-ok.
Test: I have hot wired the trailer side of the connector from battery positive to each of the 3 wires on the trailer side of the connector. The 4th wire [White wire]: connected to battery ground.

green wire: trailer right both bulb elements are lit.
trailer left dark
yellow wire: trailer right dark
trailer left both bulb elements are lit
brown wire: trailer right one bulb element lit
trailer left one bulb element lit

I assume that the trailer is a-ok. do you agree?

Moving to the truck side of the converter connector. I think the 3 indicator lights on the 4-wire flat converter indicate that the truck side works properly.

Right turn signal is on in the truck. The truck side connector Indicator light in position 1 [right] flashes.

Left turn signal is on in the truck. The truck side connector Indicator light in position 2 [left] flashes.

Running lights are on in the truck. The truck side connector Indicator light in position 4 is lit.

Stop light is on in the truck. The truck side connector Indicator light in position 1 [right] and position 2 [left] is lit.

When the trailer side is connected to the truck side the indicator light in position 2 [left] goes dark. This happens regardless of whether using turn signal, stop, or run lights. all the connections have been sanded to bright and a light coating of di-electric grease applied.

Does this indicate a converter failure?

Please advise.
 
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Old 06-25-18, 08:12 AM
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When you test the trailer.... applying power to green should bring on right side bright filament only.
Applying power to yellow should bring on just the left side bright filament only.
The dim filament on both sides is for the running/parking lights.
Sounds like there may be a ground issue.
 
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Old 06-25-18, 08:55 AM
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I will check the green and yellow wire direct to battery again. Perhaps I was blinded by the intensity of the light...perhaps the low filament did not illuminate. I have continuity between the bulb-ground within the left lamp and the main ground on the trailer as measured by my volt meter. Do you think the ground, under these conditions, is a still problem? How can I test the converter? Thanks for your help.
 
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Old 06-26-18, 04:06 AM
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UHaul converter

I checked the filament on the lamps and found that i gave you incorrect information. Only the bright filament was illuminated when I used a battery to directly power the lamps.

I checked the wiring between the converter and the truck side of the plug. The uhaul converter kit yellow wire showed low voltage all the way up to the converter. Installed a new converter that I bought last week. Those indicator lights on the Uhaul kit gave me misplaced confidence in the viability of the Uhaul system. The voltage on the new unit provided 10v to the connector on both left [yellow] and right [green] wire connector. That voltage difference should have told me the converter was bad. I discovered the voltage difference on 24JUN18 but I did know if that was important. A learning experience for me. I appreciate your help and your willingness to answer my inquiries. I hope this conversation will help others trying to get trailer light to work when a converter is involved. The Uhaul people were unwilling or unable to help me diagnose the converter online or on the phone. I only needed to understand how the converter worked so I could diagnose the problem.
 

Last edited by LKV1; 06-26-18 at 04:09 AM. Reason: additional germain information
 

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