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Help please? New trailer owner with FJ needs help fast!

6K views 13 replies 13 participants last post by  roverjay87 
#1 ·
Hi all, I've been registered here since 2012. I searched the forum but didn't find a simple answer thread. I'll tell you my predicament and be brief:

I own a 2012 FJ MT6 with the factory towing package option. It has the Toyota hitch receiver and what looks like the 4-pole harness connector hanging under the rear bumper. My FJ is otherwise stock.

I suddenly have a new Forest River R-Pod 179 travel trailer that has electric brakes and requires a 7-pole harness on the tow vehicle.

I haven't picked up the new trailer yet, nor have I done anything about the harness requirements except scare myself with reading that account on Jalopnik of the poor fellow in Texas whose FJ burnt to a cinder because of an improperly-installed wiring harness that was apparently spliced into his taillights 'the cheap way' so as to avoid proper 7-pole harness.

I have to tow this trailer on the week of May 18th 2015 from Northern Nevada down to Scottsdale AZ.[/U] As you can see, time is running out. I have to move fast and I don't know much about towing/trailering/hitches/tow harnesses. I'm absolutely slammed with work don't have any time to investigate this very much and I'm going to have to pay to have any modifications done to the FJ to support towing this new trailer.

Questions:

(Post links to forum posts if you can help me find a thread I didn't see, please)


  • So what do I need to do about the harness, and do it up right, already considering I have whatever the factory Toyota towing harness amounts to? I am aware of the need for a trailer brake gizmo inside the vehicle. I'm looking at a Tekonsha of some kind.

  • What do I need to avoid doing or letting the harness installer do? I don't at all plan on doing this wiring job myself. I did see an installation video on etrailer.com (Trailer Brake Controller Installation - 2013 Toyota FJ Cruiser) covering some of this.

Anything you can do to help is appreciated! I'm sort of in a panic and a rush. I'm very busy with work before the holiday coming up and the trip to Scottsdale AZ.
 
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#2 ·
I recently had a brake controller installed on my rig. I didn't do it myself because I didn't have the time. I had an RV shop do mine. They asked a lot of questions and it seems like they did a good job. It works and hasn't burned my truck to the ground yet. There isn't much to utilize as far as factory components so they had to run a lot of wire. Wish I could give you more insight. :cheers:
 
#3 ·
Are you buying it new from a dealer. If so let them do it and forget about it. They can pick up the harness or make their own, depends on availability I would guess.

Nice looking trailer, but it is not an off road trailer, so if you plan on that be very careful. Too long from axle to hitch and the jacks in the front are going to hit on just about anything off road it appears.

Good luck to you.
 
#4 ·
#8 ·
The 4 pin is not going to give him brakes- just lights. And there is no plug and play factory 7 pin harness as far as I can tell. So his options are to hard wire a brake controller tapping into the brake wire or there is a new option by Tekonsha to go wireless:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001P0ZA86...UTF8&colid=1X1ZJZLCTIKUC&coliid=ICBFXKUHC61VC


I have an offroad teardrop that I need to wire brakes for, I may try the RF solution. Has any one else tried it? A radio signal for brakes seems a little scary ... what of my wife's Pandora bluetooth stream interferes?
 
#5 ·
#6 ·
I used the circuits from the 4 pin to get the lighting for the 7 blade.

The only wire I ran to the back was from the brake controller. I skipped installing a +12V, since none of my trailers need it.
 
#12 ·
I ran a 7 pin RV and trailer brake controller on my FJ pretty quick after I bought it but everything I used, I pulled from my 4runner easy enough.

This is a bit newer, but I use a Hopkins 7+4 that connects directly to the factory 4 pin connector. You can easily add this to get a 7pin working for lights.
Multi-Tow® 4 Wire Flat to 7 RV Blade & 4 Wire Flat

As for my trailer brake controller, I pulled the install kit harness and controller from my 4runner and wired it much the same. I ran it all myself. main power from the battery to the dash, and followed the frame rail from the fire wall back to the hitch for brake power. I spliced the wire from the brake light switch where it goes into the trailer light controller under the drive's side kick panel.

I never mounted my trailer brake controller, as I don't pull regularly. I normally keep it tucked in the fuse panel When I am using my car-hauler, I pull the cover and turn the controller, and it conveniently wedges right in place over the fuse panel, where I can reach it.

Biggest problem I ran into with the trailer wiring in my FJ was the stock 4pin plug at the back bumper had bad contacts, but I had repaired that already with a new plug splices into the harness. Was easy for me to find information on the factory trailer wiring. Used it to troubleshoot the original plug, and then a week later to tie in my trailer brake controller.

Sorry I don't have any pictures or any more info on my job.
 

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#13 ·
Well, I did it. I picked up our Forest River R-Pod 179 travel trailer from our dealer and set out from Lake Tahoe NV to Phoenix AZ on May 16th. This is the 'Hood River' off-road edition of the R-Pod 179.

They wired up the existing 4-pole Toyota connector into new auxiliary wiring for a 7-pole harness and set me up with a Fastway E2 sway control hitch onto my factory towing rig. The proportional brake controller is a Tekonsha Voyager that was supposed to be a P2 model, so I have to get them to fix that mistake. Loaded up dry, I was towing about 3000 pounds GVWR, well beneath the limit of the trailer's capacity and the Toyota towing limit for the FJ.

The short story is that I ran there and back without problems, managed to tow at 60mph on uphill climbs, 65-70mph across the flatlands, and could exceed 80mph on long downhill grades if I wanted to, which I prevented myself from doing by shifting into a lower gear on my FJ's MT6 transmission. I got an average of 12.5 mpg across the whole trip and on two long flat stretches through central Nevada and between Kingman AZ and Phoenix I recorded as high as 14.4 mpg. I'd expected a lot less. Only on a long uphill 6% grade did mileage and power take a slight downturn, as I had to stay in 4th gear at 3500 rpms to make 50-55 mph.

My 2012 FJ broke 11,000 miles on the odometer on this trip, so it's practically like new. Voltage stayed directly between the poles in the ammeter, temperature stayed where it usually does even when not towing the trailer, and the rear end of my FJ never squat down very much under tow. Some oncoming folks did flash their lights at me on the open road so I expect that my headlights were aimed up a smidge under load.

Towing was pretty nice, I have to say. Very smooth and stable, even when getting passed by the wind buffeting of oncoming semi trailers. I even went through a powerful thunderstorm at Walker Lake NV that was pouring a few inches of frozen slush on the road in a savage microburst and didn't have any trouble. We typically have nice blacktop on our Nevada highways and the ride was smooth and calm, often hard to tell I was pulling a trailer behind me until it was necessary to shift up or down depending on the incline of the road.

The trailer is just as wide as the FJ so I didn't need extended mirrors. If you're used to dealing with the FJ's 'blind spots', you'll be OK towing any R-Pod model (mine's the largest) as long as you understand that the trailer wheels do stick out like ears from the side of the trailer. I merely crane my head to view the full length of my mirror's reflection to see what's behind me before I switch lanes. I found out that you can do a U-Turn from the far left turn lane as long as the boulevard you're U-turning onto is three lanes wide. Las Vegas has very wide boulevards -- wider than most Nevada highways -- so this wasn't a problem. Otherwise, get into the rightmost left turn lane when turning left whenever possible. Turning right with the R-Pod meant counting to three before the turn to prevent the right trailer tire from crawling up on the sidewalk or curb.

At one point, I had to take it off-road down a washboard desert road for about seven miles when the Nevada Highway Patrol closed I-95N to detour traffic around a terrible head-on collision. This was a nice test of my off-road towing capability and it was no problem at all. The 'dusty' photo in this attachment was taken when I returned to the highway and did an examination of my tires after taking the off-road detour.

Overall, the FJ did just fine with this R-Pod. We absolutely love the trailer. It's very nice in all ways for its size. It's lighter than it looks and seemed to attract attention from folks who knew more about it than I did as they were looking at purchasing the same model of R-Pod. My opinion is that this model of R-Pod, being the largest, is a 'right size' travel trailer for an FJ to tow. Be aware that I have the manual transmission and factory 'Off Road' package with full time 4WD and deeper gearing than the much more common automatic transmission FJs do. My tires are still the stock models as shipped from the factory and I haven't got any relevant mods made to my FJ.

Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't try to tow without a reputable sway-controlling hitch and I do believe I'd prefer towing with a manual transmission instead of an automatic even though I bet that the automatic would get somewhat better gas mileage. If I had the automatic, I'd get a transmission cooler just to be safe. If I were to attempt a truly remote expedition with this trailer, I think I'd want to ensure that I had auxiliary jerry cans with gasoline mounted somewhere to increase the FJs somewhat limited range for safety's sake.

I went into this expedition as a first-time trailer tower with good reason for apprehension; This was over 1200 miles round-trip with no experience, and any rational person would believe that is biting off more than anyone in my position would try to chew. Turns out that everything went swell and I even had a few unexpected challenges thrown at me.
 

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