Testing Trailer Brakes on 1973 Horse Trailer

Question:

I have a 1973 Gore horse trailer I had the 5 way plug when I bought it on my 1989 silverado truck and it pluged in but I couldent get it to do any thing the trailer had been rigged up with what looked like house wires I also tried it on my cousins 2004 350 and it has a brake box and it dident come on and dident do anything we took all the wires off and put on new lights and wired them with the 4 way flat trailer conector and just dident use the brakes but the trailer empty weighs about a thousand pounds and i only hauled one horse and now i may be pulling 2 so my main questions are does a trailer that old have to have a brake box to work do the new kind of brakes work on a trailer that old Is there a way to hook them up to a battery and test them to see if they work

asked by: Matthew M

Expert Reply:

If your trailer does indeed have electric brakes and you want them to actuate, you will need a brake controller to activate them when the vehicle brakes are applied.

We offer a large selection of brake controllers, I would recommend the Tekonsha Prodigy P2, part # 90885. The P2 is a proportional controller, which means that when properly adjusted the trailer and the vehicle will brake in tandem which saves wear and tear on both the vehicle and trailer braking systems. To install the controller, we offer a Brake Controller Installation Kit, part # ETBC6. This kit contains the 6-way trailer connector for the vehicle (which is typical for horse trailers) as well as all wire, circuit breakers and installation hardware needed.

You can certainly test the brakes using a car battery. Each brake assembly has a magnet that activates the brakes. The magnet will have two wires coming off of it. Apply power to one lead, and ground the other to the negative battery terminal.

We have a Brake Controller Installation Guide on the website that you might find helpful. I will provide a link below that will take you to it, as well as links to an installation video.

expert reply by: Mike L