Using 7pin connector?

Uncleford · December 20, 2013

Hey guys, I have a 2009 EB 4.6 4x4.

I notice that this comes standard with a flat four pin connector. Problem I am having is my 16ft car trailer has electric brakes, a battery and a 7 pin (round plug) connector.

I have been looking for a way to change my Explorer over to the 7pin setup so I can have electric brakes and charge my battery while driving. Does anyone make a conversion that is plug and play?

I have searched through the forums and can't find anything other than brake controller questions. (I found that under the dash and its hooked up and ready to go)

I don't want to cut up the harness, there has to be a nice plug and play somewhere. Thanks for any help you can give me!

Explorer0204 · December 20, 2013

On the third gens the plug for the hitch wiring is under the passengers side tail light. Trace the wire from your connector to wherever it ends up. It should end up at a plug, possibly n that general area. Then all you need to do is buy an Oem or aftermarket 6 pin adapter with the right plug made for your vehicle and plug it right in. Hope this makes sense.

Also, if you had the tow package I would think you would already have a 7 pin. Just make sure that you don't need to add a trans cooler or anything to tow the weight you want to without damaging you truck.

MercuryMullet · December 20, 2013

An adapter won't make the brakes work. If the truck doesn't have a 7pin factory you will need to run a brake wire form your controller

Uncleford · December 20, 2013

Okay, I will look and see if I can find where the harness plugs in. problem is I have only owned this vehicle for little over a week driving it back and forth to work and haven't had much of a chance to check out many of the options on it. Now next week I am hauling a 16ft trailer full of quads and dirt bikes from Va to bama

When I was searching for an answer I saw something about a "blue" wire that needs to be connected. I am guessing that this is the wire you guys are talking about.

As far as not having the "towing pkg"...maybe I misunderstood but I always thought the Eddie Bauer Editions came standard with the towing options. Now I am curious....grrrr

Funny thing is today I went into the Ford place and asked about a harness to replace the 4 pin with a 7 pin...they were clueless...completely...I mean heck my 2001 F-150 XLT had a 7 pin from the factory and had much less HP/Tq ...anyone else?

MercuryMullet · December 20, 2013

I pull a 20 ft flat bed without brakes but it sucks. The easiest thing for wiring is to use the factory four pin and hook up a brake controller. I recommend a prodigy. You need a hot, brake light tap in and run 1 12 ga to the rear. That will give you brakes. I wouldn't worry about a trans cooler for one trip but would get one eventually. Hope this helps. Pm me if you would like more explanation.

Explorer0204 · December 20, 2013

Uncleford said:
Okay, I will look and see if I can find where the harness plugs in. problem is I have only owned this vehicle for little over a week driving it back and forth to work and haven't had much of a chance to check out many of the options on it. Now next week I am hauling a 16ft trailer full of quads and dirt bikes from Va to bama

When I was searching for an answer I saw something about a "blue" wire that needs to be connected. I am guessing that this is the wire you guys are talking about.

As far as not having the "towing pkg"...maybe I misunderstood but I always thought the Eddie Bauer Editions came standard with the towing options. Now I am curious....grrrr

Funny thing is today I went into the Ford place and asked about a harness to replace the 4 pin with a 7 pin...they were clueless...completely...I mean heck my 2001 F-150 XLT had a 7 pin from the factory and had much less HP/Tq ...anyone else?

In general vehicles with tow packages come with 7 pin connectors making me a little suspicious.

Uncleford · December 20, 2013

Yeah, it makes me a little suspicious too..I wish I would have looked a little closer at the Class II hitch that is...uhh ..welded...to the frame. That would of had me asking more questions.

Don't get me wrong, so far I like this little SUV, obviously not as big as our old EB Expedition but I like its plush interior...my 01 F150 had cloth interior, so leather/heated seats are *****ing..lol

I do have a brake controller installed already. (it was used on my F-150) The factory connector plug is under the dash on the driver side. All I did was plug my controller into the factory plug, velcro the brake controller under the dash and check what I could. When you manually engage the controller (with nothing hooked up/no lights/no trailer, keys off) the brake lights of the Explorer come on..Seeing that leads me to believe that I just need a 7 pin connector and harness to replace my 4 pin connector and harness.. Can this be wrong? Do I still have to run a wire from the controller to the trailer?

Thanks for the ideas..

MercuryMullet · December 20, 2013

If it has a connector for the controller then it should be wired but then would have a 7 pin. Weird. Wish I could be more help, but without seeing what your working with its kinda hard.

MercuryMullet · December 20, 2013

Something tells me there was a hack job in the rear.

Uncleford · December 21, 2013

ha, I just sent you a PM. Well I looked at all the wires in the back. It doesn't look like anything different then factory wires/harness and loom

Uncleford · December 21, 2013

Well no updates on this yet...I did see that I have a tranny cooler on the front passenger side in front of the radiator/condenser. I quickly looked for an oil cooler but wasn't able to under far enough to see. What I could see was the oil filter is facing forward at an angle like toward the bumper. I saw a line going to the same area but not sure what is was.

I really need a few days to go through this vehicle to see what I have...lol

thebrakeman · January 7, 2014

You do not have a 2" receiver, nor 7-pin connector. THis confirms that you do not have the HD towing package, but only the standard Class 2 setup, which is limited to 3500 lbs MAX, regardless of engine.

Regardless of the brake controller or additional cooling, you do not have the gearing to handle a car-haul trailer. Anything you put in the truck (besides the driver) takes away from that 3500. Bring a 200 lbs friend? Down to 3300. Etc. But even if it's just you in the truck, no way will a car, on a hauler, weigh in under 3500. Probably 6000 easy once loaded.

Also, when you apply a brake controller, it should not light up the brake lights. And even if it is installed correctly, your truck has no brake wiring to the rear (IIRC)....again because it does not have the factory HD towing package.

Use the old Expedition, if you still have it. Otherwise, find a plan C.

MercuryMullet · January 7, 2014

My Carson car hauler weighted 1700 empty. Since he is hauling quads I figured 3500 was a good estimate. Didn't know he was hauling a car.

Common sense also has to take effect the exact same truck with a different hitch and MAYBE different gears hauls/tows 7200. Putting a few hundred pounds in the cab to make total hauling weight a little over 3500 may not be the end of the world. The major downfall is the 1"1/4 receiver if that is what he has.

thebrakeman · January 7, 2014

I saw "car hauler" in original post and ASS-umed a car. Must have missed the post about quads.

Uncleford · January 14, 2014

Update... Well I tore everything apart and still couldn't find the wires I needed. So like was mentioned before, I added the two wires needed (brakes and battery charging). It works great and all I have left to do is add a class three hitch under my factory 1 1/4 hitch (sigh) This little SUV tows pretty good for its size. Anyway, for anyone wanting to add a 7 pin connector for towing you will have to buy the 7pin connector, find the brake controller plug and run two additional wires, one from the battery and the other from the blue wire on the factory brake controller harness and run them to the back of the vehicle. It didn't really take more than an hour to have it all done... Most of my issue was getting over the fact that Ford installed a class two hitch instead of a class three..hope this will help someone

thebrakeman · January 15, 2014

Class II is good for 3500 lbs, which is all your gearing is good for. If they put a Class 3 hitch (5000 lbs) on all Explorers, we would have even more people towing over their limits. Class III/IV hitch only goes on trucks with the Class II/IV HD towing package.

Good job on the wiring. I had do wiring for lights, brakes, and charge line on our Chrysler minivan when we were towing a 3000 lb popup camper. It's quite fulfilling to do this sort of work yourself. Lots of money saved.

Uncleford · June 8, 2014

Hey Brakeman, I'm a little late getting back to this but here goes..I thought that my towing capacity on my '09 was around 7300 lbs? I am not sure where I got that but I will look into it.

It is a car trailer that I am towing behind me, its just at this time I have only towed our quads, dirt bikes and camping equipment.

You really have me thinking about the weight differences. I need to figure out what gears I have. I thought they would be at least 355's.

Maybe I am already over loaded with what I have been carrying. I "guess" my trailer is 1700 lbs. My Can Am Outlander 800 is 750lbs, the Polaris Ace is 850 lbs the Polaris 335 Magnum is roughly 500 lbs and our gear is about 300 lbs plus ramps, another 35 lbs. That is over 4000 lbs.

Not to mention Me, wifey and son and 95lb American Bull Dog.

Our last trip was to Alabama from Virginia, around 900 miles thorough the mountains of Tn. It towed fine. I have it loaded where the trailer is mostly level even though I would like to put some bags under it to help sag for future tows.

What am I going to need to make this right? Aux cooler, re-gear? I'm listening. Thanks for the info!

thebrakeman · June 9, 2014

Again:
You only get the 7000+ capacity if you have the HD towing package. Since you don't have a 2" receiver, and you don't have a factory 7-pin connector, this confirms that you don't have the HD towing package. Without the HD towing package, Ford limits you to 3500 lbs. Yes, your gearing is 3.55:1. Yes, you have the 6-speed transmission. But IIRC, you are missing some engine and/or transmission cooling.

thebrakeman · June 9, 2014

Do I think your truck can handle 4000 lbs as is? Probably.
Will you technically be overloaded? Yes.

Uncleford · June 11, 2014

Okay, thanks for the info, my bad for thinking EB was top of the line and had everything. Thanks , I look into what else I can add on to supplement my towing.

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