Breakaway switch question

I had a friend over the other day and he wanted to check out the Kodiak disc brake setup on my Lifestyle and was wondering how loud the actuator was , I pulled the breakaway cable and nothing, the actuator never came on , checked the switch and it was working fine, so decided to back my truck up and connect the trailer wiring up and bingo the actuator worked, so what I discovered is that the installer , who worked at a well known trailer installation business used the hot wire from the truck wiring to activate the breakaway switch and couldn’t be bothered to run a wire from the switch into the front compartment of the trailer and connect to the trailer power, which is not an easy job, but if for some reason the trailer gets away from the truck there will be no braking to stop the trailer , a very dangerous situation !!  Is this common practice when wiring up the Disc Brake conversion kits ? I hope not !!!

Topic

[JohnD222ParticipantTopics - 8Replies - 518Total - 526]

This should not happen period.

Running a new wire all the way to the front breakaway switch is not required, but lifestyle made it a LOT harder to find the wires that lead from the forward storage to that pinbox.

 

they should complete the install properly and not charge you any more $, but I wouldn’t hesitate to pay a bit more to get the complete job.

JohnD222
Based in Florida except summer
2013 36FWS Lifestyle (our great 2010 Cameo 36FWS has happy owners)

[van islanderParticipantParticipantTopics - 44Replies - 78Total - 122]

I just bought the Lifestyle so it was already  like this , I contacted who I bought it from and they said it was done by a reputable trailer repair place . I ran a new wire myself, I went up from the pin box and into the storage under the bed, I then ran the wire along the wood bed support to the foot of the bed, I drilled down from there and it goes down into the very front of the storage compartment where I was able to get the 12volt battery power, a bit of work but I feel away more comfortable knowing the trailer will stop if it ever comes away from the truck. Can’t believe you can get away with using just the truck 12volts !!

[Author]

Replies