hey everybody welcome back to the BTR Garage my name is Justin today we have
the first upgrade that I'm going to be doing to my 2002 ford f250 with the 7.3L
PowerStroke diesel we've got a simple video for you to say a simple upgrade
we're going to be installing a new trailer brake controller replacing the
one that is in the truck currently we'll show you what we've got
and we'll show you how to hook it up in the truck now the existing trailer brake
controller on the truck is found down here mounted to the dash the trailer
brake controller purpose is to actually activate the brakes on the trailer
itself the trailer will usually have electronic style brakes that are tied
into the brake pedal on the truck through the wiring into the brake
controller what this does is aid in stopping power when you're coming to a
stop as you have not only the trucks brakes braking the car but the trailer
brakes braking the car as well now I went ahead and quickly removed the old
brake controller from the truck this is very primitive looking brake controller
from Hayes I believe it is and we're gonna be upgrading to a more modern
Tekonsha P3 brake controller this one has a lot more features the capability
for multiple trailers has an LCD display readouts and a number of other features
that are nice to have when you're towing big trailers with big trucks we also
have the appropriate adapter cable for this particular brake controller that
will attach to the stock Ford F250 wiring harness that's in there already
the Tekonsha p3 is now out of the box very nice units still has the lever for
manually testing your brake controller on the bottom the old one has the pinch
style lever here this is a way you can actually activate the electronic brakes
on the trailer only to do testing and setting up of the actual brakes on the
trailer so this one again different bunch of different buttons for the
settings we'll take a look at them and a little bit here hopefully and I'm hoping
that the mounts for this guy will actually fit right into the existing
mount that the other brake controller was in so we don't have to mount a new
one but if you were mounting this from scratch you would basically screw this
little bracket up into your dash somewhere with screws upward like that
and then the unit would fit in there like so and looks something like that
hanging underneath your dash now the new Tekonsha p3 mounted up just fine under
the dash I did have to use the bracket that came with the Tekonsha controller
this bracket here that screws in to the bottom of your dash area the old one was
just a little bit too wide but no big deal I just reused the same holes if
you're gonna be mounting this new from a scratch
that's your bracket right there and you can see the screws underneath there just
drill it straight into the plastic you want to make sure there's nothing
important behind the back of your dash but it's a pretty simple and
straightforward install the next thing that we'll be doing is connecting the
wire harness that I purchased along with it to contra controller this one will
allow you to connect your new brake controller to your specific vehicle of
course this one is for my 2002 Ford F250 you'll notice the old wiring harness and
the old brake controller does not fit it's a different style connector so what
I got to do is unplug that from underneath the dash as you can see I've
removed the front panel which is simple four little screws in the front and the
connector is actually up right in there
so I'm gonna get that old harness unplugged get the new one plugged in and
then put the dash back together it's freaking hot as heck out here
the sun is coming in so I'm trying to get this done and wrapped up and show
you guys the finished product all right so the trailer brake controller is
connected it powered up as you can see it's got the little displacement it says
press a key to continue and it's gonna show me the power levels that I can set
for my brake controller basically the amount of power that is going to your
brakes determines how hard those brakes are gonna activate when they are
connected and obviously I don't have a trailer connected to my truck right now
so I won't be able to do a lot of setups so refer to your manual for actual setup
of the brake controller and the cool options that it has in addition to
standard trailer brake controls like the boost setting and multiple trailers and
things like that and looking good with everything buttoned up and back together
all right everybody there we go quick little video on how to install a trailer
brake controller into your truck or your SUV these brake controllers will work
with virtually any truck that is wired for a trailer brake you just need to get
the appropriate adapter harness that connects the tekonsha unit to your
factory OEM wiring harness or you can go the hard route and wire it all
completely yourself for the electronic trailer brakes but I love these brake
controllers this is the second one I have had them looking forward to trying
it out on our new truck you have any thoughts comments or questions please
leave them down below you can find links to the products that I used in the
description as well down below stick around for more good stuff for the f250
here stay fast out there I am checking out talk to you all next time