Tow bar Electrics

[warrenpfo]

I had to replace a faulty brake bulb yesterday and after removing the drivers side light cluster came across a jumble of wires and a little black box sitting under the light cluster. On further inspection and some googling I found out the little black box is supposed to emit a sound when I have a trailer connected and the indicator on. This is not happening to thought I would remove it and follow the rest of the jumble of wires. It appears that who ever installed my tow bar and its electrics (its a Toyota tow bar) seems to have either had a rough night before or was just very sloppy in their workmanship.

They seem to have punctured one of the rubber bungs so that they could feed a wire to the rear light cluster and then used those plastic clips that have a small metal rib in them to T off the existing wiring harness to one of the rear light clusters.

I wondered how other people have done their tow bar electrics and if there is an off the shelf harness one can buy that just plugs in to the tow bar electric socket that hangs under the rear of the car.

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

I had a similar nest of wires and black box that beeped when I got it but stopped working soon after. I just replaced it with another black box from Towsure that does beep and soldered the joints. There is an OEM kit you can buy for the black socket and I don't think it was a totally stupid price but I'm sure I've read of strange electrical issues related to this OEM kit and that's why I went with the generic relay kit.

 

[Chris]

I would recommend a by pass relay. It takes a feed from your battery and uses the vehicle wiring to fire mini relays in a black box which sends the feed directly to the trailer lights. This way you get great lights and you don't suffer from all that dimming of the other lights when you indicate. If you put LED replacement bulbs in the trailer too you don't pull so much from the battery.

Chris

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

The original black box in mine didn't use relays and that was what made me investigate and discover it - didn't like running a light board that had two indicator bulbs each side! The replacement has a separate power feed as Chris suggests.

 

[warrenpfo]

Thanks chaps, is there a one stop shop to get the bits and bobs from?

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

Most trailer places should do them but this looks like what I fitted to mine.