Troubleshooting Horse Trailer Brakes that Lock Up when Trailer Wiring is Connected

Question

Question:

I have a 2006 Dodge Ram 3500 lonestar addition diesel truck. I just had it rewired to the factory package. When I plug my Sundowner horse trailer into the truck the breaks lock up on the trailer. Any advice. Please help....I wanna go riding.

asked by: Susan

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Expert Reply:

What you need to do is swap the center pin and the pin in the 2:00 position of your horse trailer's 6-way and the problem will go away. The reason this is happening is that for some reason there are two different ways people wire up 6-ways and the only difference is the brake output and 12 volt accessory circuit pins are swapped.

If you cut the two wires and then splice to the other pin it will work just fine.

expert reply by: Jameson C

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Answer 1

This is a fairly common problem for trailer setups that use 6-way connectors like the #PK11604 that you referenced. The issue is that there is two accepted ways the connector can be wired up. The only difference between the two setup is that the…

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Answer 2

The problem you are experiencing is due to the fact that there are two different ways 6-way trailer connectors are wired. The only difference between the two is that the brake output circuit and the 12 volt power circuit are swapped. So basically…

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Answer 3

Typically, the wire colors are brown for running lights, green for right turn and brake lights, and yellow for left turn and brake lights. White is ground. To confirm this on a trailer you can trace the wires back to see where they terminate or take…

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Answer 4

By looking at the picture you sent me it looks like the yellow wire is the left turn, the green is the right turn, the brown is tail lights and the white is the ground. Which leaves us with the two black wires. There are a couple options for…

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Answer 5

Since different manufacturers can use different color wires you need to test the wires by function and not by color. If there is no white wire present, you can trace the wiring on your trailer to find out where the wires terminate. The wire that is…

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Answer 6

Do you mean that you're using a circuit tester on your 6-way connector on the trailer (not the truck) and you're reading 12 volts on one of the pins? The only way that would happen would be if you had a battery mounted on the trailer.…

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Answer 7

The pin-out for a 7-way trailer connector is pretty consistent. Unless the connector was wired incorrectly, it should be wired as shown in the provided photo showing the correct pin-out. What CAN vary is the wire color codes, which are also shown in…

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Answer 8

The purple wire you are referring to is the reverse light circuit, this circuit is usually used as a reverse lockout circuit for trailers with surge brakes so they can be reversed without activating the brakes of the trailer. Or sometimes it is used…

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Answer 9

See the picture to the right for a wiring diagram of seven-way vehicle end trailer connector. If you click on it you can enlarge it. I have also included a trailer wiring FAQ page for you to check out.

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Answer 10

When wiring a 7-Way on your trailer with 5 wires, your green wire will be right turn/brake, the yellow wire will be left turn/brake, the brown wire will be the taillights, and the white wire will be the ground. You will want to find out if the blue…

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Answer 11

A 6-way round-pin trailer plug like Pollak #PK11604 has a center pin that can be wired in two ways. The most common function to be found on that center pin is 12V trailer power. This is a low-level maintenance charge that will maintain a charged…

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Answer 12

It sounds like you found out why the brakes were activated while you were towing the trailer to storage, so that solves that problem. Now we will want to figure out why the brakes are still locking up with the new breakaway switch. Even if you fried…

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Troubleshooting Horse Trailer Brakes that Lock Up when Trailer Wiring is Connected

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