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Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Today on this 2001 Nissan Xterra we're going to install part number 90195 from Tekonsha, the P3 brake controller. To install our brake controller we're also going to use part number ETBC7 to install it, and we're going to work with that part number first. We're going to take the seven pole adapter and connect that to the gray cable in the kit. We'll use the butt connector to make our connections, and we'll use the color code as follows: We're going to go black to black, and white to blue. Our black wire will be used for our 12 volt power supply going out to the seven pole connector, and our blue wire will be our brake controller output. Now that blue wire is going to change from blue to white and then it will go back to blue eventually at the brake controller.
We'll go ahead and tape our wires up and we'll also use the loom material that comes with it to help protect the wires and make it look nice. Now we're going to need an extra bracket to mount this to our hitch on our vehicle. The bracket we're going to use is part number 18159. This bracket is designed to work with square or round hitches. In this case, we've got a round hitch to deal with so we're going to go ahead and cut out along the marks on the inside of the bracket to make it fit a round hitch.
Now we'll go ahead and take our wires and thread it through the bracket. Then we'll go ahead and use the hardware that comes with the ETBC7 kit to attach it to our bracket. Now it's a good idea to drill out the holes first before we install our hardware since the hardware won't fit in the holes already drilled in the bracket. Then we'll go ahead and install the hardware. We'll install the bolts from the outside to the inside.
Then we'll install the nuts on the inside of the bracket. Now, two of the bolts will be really hard to get to, to get the nuts started. So, as a tech tip, we're going to use a magnetic pick-up tool to actually hold the nut for us while we thread it into place. OK. At this point we've got our seven pole connector and our bracket connected together.
We'll go ahead and attach it to the hitch. The bracket comes with a clamp that we'll run around the hitch and through the bracket. Then we'll tighten it down. We'll cut off the excess part of the clamp and tuck it inside the bracket. Now we'll go ahead and connect our four pole from our seven pole connector to the pre-existing four pole on our vehicle. We'll go ahead and use some dielectric grease to help protect the pins and the contacts. We'll tape it together and also use a zip tie to help make it a semi-permanent connection. Then we'll go ahead and route our wire over the spare tire over to the passenger side. Once we're over to the passenger side, we'll go ahead and take the white wire with the ring terminal and run that to the body underneath. That will be our ground. Then we'll go ahead and zip tie the wire as best we can to the hitch and anything else behind the bumper. Then we'll go ahead and run our gray wire up towards the front of the vehicle towards the battery. We're going to run our wire along the frame and also along the parking brake cable going up to the front, and we'll zip tie as we need to secure the wire. Now when we run it to the engine compartment, we'll go ahead and keep the wire hidden behind the heat shield. Then we'll run it up the side of the firewall and zip tie as need to keep it in place. We'll take our gray cable and route it up to the battery. Now at this point we can tell we're not going to have enough cable to go from the battery to the brake controller eventually. We're going to take the covering from the gray cable and strip it back the rest of the length starting by the circuit breaker and working our way towards the end of the cable. With the gray sheath removed from the wires, we'll go ahead and leave them alone for now, and then we'll install our circuit breakers. We're going to install a 40 amp circuit breaker and our 20 amp circuit breaker. The 30 amp breaker in the ETBC7 kit will not be used. So, our black wire, we'll go ahead and run it to the circuit breaker, our 40 amp, and we're running it to the silver post on the breaker, and then the copper post will eventually be ran to the battery. So we'll make our connections to the circuit breaker and run it to the positive posts of the battery, but we will not make an electrical connection to the battery yet. We'll save that for last. Now our white wire, we're going to run that over the top of the engine compartment over to the drivers side. Now well leave the wire alone for there and were going to locate the grommet were going to eventually push the wires through. We're going to use a screwdriver to make a hole in the grommet and then use a piece of airline tubing to help pull our wires through. Now there'll be three wires that will be going through. There will be our white wire that we just pulled over. We're going to pull that through the grommet, and then we're going to get an additional length of the gray cable, and the part number for the extra length of cable will be etbcxw. We're going to combine that with the white wire and pull that through our grommet. We'll go ahead and pull all three wires through the grommet and to the inside of the vehicle. Now we'll go ahead and take the remaining part of our cable that's in the engine compartment and run it back over to our battery. We're going to run it through the 20 amp circuit breaker just like we did before. The wire that will go to the brake controller will go to the silver post and then the rest of the wire from the copper post will go to the battery. And once again, we'll put it in on the wire, but we will not connect it to the battery. And, our white wire will eventually go to the negative side of the battery for ground. Next we'll go ahead and take that cable and zip ties and we'll secure it to the firewall. Now we'll go back inside the vehicle and get underneath the dashboard on the drivers side. At this point we're going to look for our brake signal. We're going to follow the brake pedal up to the brake switch and test our wires. Now our brake wire looks like a light brown color with a red stripe and silver bands. We'll use a quick splice connector from the ETBC7 kit to make our connection. Now the wire that we're going to connect to our brake light switch is going to be the wire harness from our brake controller. Now we'll go ahead and connect the rest of our wires from our brake controller harness. We'll start off with our blue wire. That's going to be hooked up to our single white wire that was ran to the seven pole connector connected to blue, and the other two wires still in the gray cable we'll hook up color for color; white to white and black to black. We'll use the supplied butt connectors to make our connection and then go ahead and tape them up. Now I'm going to take our brake controller bracket and mount it to the bottom of the dash. The two screws that come with it will go right into the plastic and hold it secure. And then we'll take two machine screws that come with the brake controller and we'll attach the brake controller to the bracket. Once those two screws are started we'll go ahead and tighten them down for good and then we'll get underneath the dash one more time and zip tie our wires up and make sure they are safe and out of the way. Now we'll go back to the battery on the vehicle and we'll make up our final connections. Our two black wires will go to the positive side of the battery and we'll go ahead and trim the cap on the terminal to make room for our wires. And, then our lone white wire, that will go to the negative side of the battery, and we're going to use an extra nut to hold it in place. We're going to use a 6 mm with a 1.0 thread pitch and that's going to be part number 185916. With all the connections made, we'll go ahead and take a look at the brake controller. Now we should see a red indication that says no trailer hooked up. Now we'll go ahead and plug the trailer into the vehicle we'll notice how it changes. You can see the screen will show a truck and a trailer icon so we know we have a good connection. Now we'll go ahead and move the manual override to make sure that works and we can see how the numbers go up in value. And, then we'll go ahead and push on the brake pedal. That will give us a small number, in this case a little over two, and it looks like we've got signal from our brake pedal. So with our initial tests, it looks like our brake controller is ready to go. And, with that, that will finish it for our install of part number 90195, the Prodigy P3 brake controller on our 2001 Nissan Xterra.
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (97 Customer Reviews)
I had this installed last year by my mechanic along with a whole electronic brake controller and I have to say this was such a good investment. It makes the install look like it belongs. No wires handing out to get caught on anything or tangled, just a clean install. Would definitely recommend and would buy again.
Perfect for '08 Toyota 4Runner.
I installed a Curt receiver hitch on my 2008 4Runner and once installed it interfered the factory 7pin trailer connector. I extended the wiring harness and this mounted box worked out perfectly.
Great product!
This did the trick for me.
Just what I was looking for it fits round or square tubes.
It hides under the bumper off to the side where I want it it mounted.
110% happy with my order.
Fast shipping
Ps. A small part was missing in the box.
But After I contacted the company they sent me a new one practically overnight.
Top notch company and they stand behind their products.
You can tell by the attached pictures I am extremely happy with this product for the past year so far and
“it still looks great”.
This installs easily and looks nice. I used it on a round tube hitch so I had to trim the plastic. That's not a problem as there is a score mark on the plastic. It cut easy and cleanly.
The strap was a half inch short of what I needed for my Curt extra duty hitch and I needed to do some extra drilling to work with the connector on my 2000 F-250. Still, not a bad arrangement. Innovative.
On my 2009 Ford Flex. Thanks etrailer.com. Great service and fast shipping. I got my order the next day!! Way to go!
etrailer.com always has a solution to my trailer problems! This worked out great and is such a cleaner look!
This is an awesome piece. It was a much better alternative than a plug hanging under the bumper. It comes set up for a square tubing style hitch, but there is a notch molded in that makes it easy to cut it away for a round tube hitch. My only complaint was the hose clamp. It was not like a normal one and I could not get it to stay tight. I replaced it with a stainless one from [local hardware store] and it has stayed tight since. The other nice thing is the unit protects the rear of your trailer plug from moisture.
The perfect solution for an odd hitch. Works great looks good. See picture.
Jack P.
4/18/2020
Has worked well. The only real solution for this difficult hitch structure on this Lexus 400h.
I used this to mount a 7-way connector to a round tube Curt hitch. It fit very well and is more secure than I expected. I can highly recommend this mounting box.
Ted P.
5/1/2016
Still perfect a year later!
The product page says this unit is a universal fit, which is not true. It will be too big for a class one hitch. I made it work with a minor modification.
Ryan D.
4/16/2015
After a year, the straps will need tightening, as the whole thing has become loose and rattles around. I would not recommend for a class one hitch.
Contrary to another reviewer, I thought the plastic to be pretty sturdy (it's got pretty thick walls). It mounts securely with the hose clamp, and gives a very clean look when installed. The recessed circular cutting guide on the inside made it easy to round out the notches to fit my round (rather than square) hitch crossbar. The only thing I had to modify was to widen the hose clamp slot on one side so I could feed some of the extra length back inside the box.
I can't review the working order of this product, because i wasn't able to use it, due to not being able to mount it in a location that worked for me. But it's a good solid product that would've worked great. And shout out to Etrailer.com, awesome website, great product information, nice selection, good prices and fast shipping. Great place to find real product reviews.
Used in conjunction with a Curt C15302 receiver and a Pollak PK11893 7-way socket on a 2003 Chevy Silverado 2500HD. The only issue I encountered is that the stock GM wiring harness plug makes for a bit of a tight fit, and you have to force the harness into the tight space. Time will tell if it holds up.
Love this product since this housing made sure our 7pin plug housing could be mounted higher and. It in the provided location in the hutch bracket. We used this housing so we could have it higher on the hitch so it will be protected. Live and recommend it to all!
Bought a car with a round pipe trailer hitch but no wiring and no good place to mount the 7-way connector. We were thinking about spot welding something until I found this. Worked great, looks nice and professional.
The mounting box worked perfectly on my round tube hitch. I like that it is off to the side as it allowed me to mount it just under the rear bumper, which looks good and made it easy to route the wires up for connection.
Great Product! However did have to modify it a little for my application regarding 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan. If one mounts the product as the angle is cut out. It will drag from past experience with 4 other Caravans. All you got to do is cut a square opening to fit 2 inch square hitch bar. This allows for the wires to go over hitch bar (on non exhaust side) and not under to be exposed to low clearance. This product is a great solution and mounts real easy. Puts my hook up away from exhaust. Will have picture later.
The Curt hitch,complete with wiring harness and the 7 pole adapter with 4 flat plug were all easy to install and conveniently available thru etrailer.com. The installation video on their web site was complete and confidence inspiring. The go to site to install it right. Thank-you etrailer.
Very nice product that gets your connector out of the way yet still accessible. My tube type hitch was smaller than the curve after I cut out the Mounting Box following the cast contours. Still, it went on easily and should last as long as the vehicle. Plan to buy mounting screws. I don't know why they include the short ones as I've never seen a 7-blade receptacle thin enough to use the ones provided.
This product did not work as advertised. Install video shows to use the the bolts (screws are to short) that came with my 7 pin plug adapter by drilling bigger holes in the box. These holes ended up right next to the side walls of the box allowing NO room for the nut to fix. Had to purchase bigger screws & drill bigger holes in by plug adapter to make it work. You need to get rid of the install video.
Very difficult to bolt the 7-connector to it, but once done it fits well and does exactly what I wanted it for. A quick dremel to cut the curve to fit a tubular hitch. Ordering and shipping was painless and fast.
The mounting box was perfect for what I needed. It installed easily and attached to my square hitch perfectly. It was just what I was looking for. Shipping was fast and etrailer kept me informed on delivery.
THIS HAS SERVED WELL BUT BE CAREFUL ABOUT OVER-TIGHTENING THE "HOSE CLAMP" TYPE BAND WHICH SECURES IT AS IT IS POSSIBLE TO DEFORM (OR, AS I DID ON ANOTHER ONE OF UNKNOWN SOURCE ON ANOTHER VEHICLE, TO PARTIALLY RIP IT).
MY BIGGEST PROBLEM WAS FINDING THIS ITEM BEAUSE IT WAS ONLY BY CHANCE THAT I ENCOUNTERED THE "MOUNTING BOX" DESCRIPTION!
Fits my square tube hitch perfectly.
Norm B.
7/20/2017
Its still working fine. Thanks!
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Ryan
6/2/2020
Still looking and working out great! So much better than one of the hanging plugs!