Dinghy Towing Connection

[engnrsrule]

I have a 2006 Roadtrek Adventurous with class III towing package. Everything in my towing connection works except the 12v auxiliary line seems dead at the plug. Any idea where this would be fed from? There are no blown fuses in any of the panels in the vehicle.

[markopolo]

Have you been able to confirm that there actually is a 12V wire installed?

Sometimes there is only the basic 4-way wiring even though there's a 7-way socket.

[engnrsrule]

There is 7 pole plug and it is connected to a wire that goes into a taped and wrapped bundle that disappears under the V vehicle so it would be really hard to trace it without pulling that bundle apart

[mloganusda]

Is the 7 pole plug a solid piece of rubber/plastic? If not, then I would remove the plug and take it apart to see how many wires are going into the plug. Then you will know if it has 7 wires. On my 2008 van, I had to wire it myself eventho the van had the trailer package from factory. No hitch or wiring, except for the plugin wires for stop and tail lights.


MLogan

Smyrna, TN

[<<B-Guy>>]

Seems to me that when we bought our 2008 Sierra truck new, I had a similar problem. It turned out that there was a wire that had to be connected, or a missing fuse to be added under the hood on the fuse board - forget which. If I recall, I was told that was the why they vehicles were shipped to the dealer and the dealer was supposed to do that. I don't understand the reasoning for that. Maybe they just don't want the charge line "live"unless the buyer actually wants to use it. A two minute fix in my case.

Brian,

[booster]

Our 07 Roadtrek also has the seven wire plug, but is only wired as a four wire connector. The extra wires from the plug dead end in the harness a ways in, under the tape. Our Chevy does not have the factory trailer prewiring package so there is no wire to connect under the dash for the brake controller etc. The Adventurous may be done similarly, so new wire may need to be run.

[markopolo]

I had originally set up 4-way wiring to a 7-way socket on my van then later added a +12V power line and upgraded the ground wire when I started to tow a travel trailer. I used 10 gauge wire with 30A fusing.

You might not absolutely need a +12V line if only towing a car. It depends on what car you're towing, the lighting used and the braking system added to the car.

I've towed a car without the +12V power line. I had to stop every few hours to start the car to charge the battery a bit to keep it usable. The portable braking system added to the car had a small compressor that would run and draw from the car battery. The car I'm towing requires periodic starting and running through the gears on the automatic transmission to circulate the transmission fluid.

Currently, I use a +12V charge line when towing that same car with a different RV. I still need to stop and run the engine to circulate the fluid in the transmission but don't need to be concerned with the car battery state of charge.

I just ordered a Roadmaster 690 parking light diode to use as the diode on the charge wire. Most of the lower cost toad charge wire diodes are not rated to permit much amperage to pass (some are rated less than 1 amp) so that's why I'm going the DIY diode route. The Roadmaster 690 is rated 85 amps according to e-trailer - https://www.etrailer.com/Accessories...er/RM-690.html - that's way more than I need so I expect the part to last a long time. It is replacing the existing low amp toad charge diode. The existing fusing stays in place.