Howdy,
zero9nine:
I may be borrowing a friends trailer to tow my SM home. Its a fairly new trailer with electric brakes. I'll be towing with my 2001 Ford E250. Do I need to buy a brake controller or do I simply need an adaptor? The Ford has a flat 4 pin connector on it.
Thanks
John
If you want the trailer's brakes to work, you need a brake controller. And if your truck only has a four pin connector in the back, you probably don't already have the underhood/dash wiring you need to do it the easy way. Most trucks these days with a tow package come with the proper seven pin connector in the back and a connector you can plug the brake controller into under the dash... But if you don't have that seven pin connector in the back, you're likely going to need to run power & brake wires from under the hood/inside the cab back to a new connector in the back.
If you don't care about the trailer brakes working (and, for a single short tow at low speeds with a light car, I probably wouldn't), you can make an adapter to make your four pin connector drive the trailer lights. Take a look at this page for some wiring diagrams you can use to figure out how to build the connector:
http://www.accessconnect.com/trailer_wiring_diagram.htm
(I don't know if anything is available off the shelf that's gonna go the direction you want to go...)
Mark