Forum Discussion

Seabass69's avatar
Seabass69
Explorer
May 01, 2021

Brake controller hookup

I have a holiday rambler scepter 2004, needing to hook up a controller. I read somewhere that some coaches have the needed wires up front under the dash to use, I was hoping someone could get me headed in the right direction before I spend a lot of time figuring it out..
  • Yes, Roadmaster/Freightliner/Spartan did run wires for a Dash Brake Controller. The problem with those wires is, they were usually (IMO) to small Gauge to correctly activate the voltage required to operate the towed electric brakes. As a Service shop we always ran our own 12 gauge bundled 2 wire(Brake feed and return from the Rear Brake lights), to make sure we had a adequate wire gauge to operate the system. Another reason, even with knowledge that the Chassis maker supplied the wires, it took up to an hour or more to find and locate the wire bundle, plus maybe taking the Instrument cluster out of the dash to get access to the wire bundles. That 1 hour, you can run a new 2 wire harness from front to rear. Some Ford Class A chassis the Ford quick connect is usually easy to find, but same problem with wire gauge too small. Great for a Pick up but not for a 36 foot motorhome chassis. Doug
  • Look for a heavy usually blue wire bottom left kick panel.
  • Ivylog's avatar
    Ivylog
    Explorer III
    Look for 5 wires in a white plastic connector for 6 wires hopefully near the obd connector...left side of steering column. Good luck finding the 4 wires that run to the back... finally found them behind the rear run box after giving up on finding them. Also the brake signal up front is not what you need...a ground is supplied...no +12V signal.

    I wasted several hours trying to find the wires and finally mounted the brake controller in the engine area as everything you need is easy to find and once set I never change the gain (amount of braking) on the controller... one hour to install. If you find both ends of the wires I would use 2 of them for the output of the brake controller.