2001 Venture WB Wiring Harness

After I bought and installed the factory tow hitch to my van they gave me a wiring harness that extended the lights from the rear drivers side to the hitch receiver. On the instructions for this wire it says that I have to buy an additional wiring harness to connect up the lights. The strange thing about the wire is it is 6 wires and not 4 like most trailer wiring.

My question is this; What is this extra wiring harness, do I have to have it or is there a way to combine a few of the wires to get it to work correctly. I called a towing store and they want $70 for the "T" connector which seems outrageous for a wire.

What should I do?

Go someplace like northern equipment and supply they sell them. Normally the new hitches are seven pin. I have a six pin and four pin adapter. You have to buy a brake devise and pig tail that plugs into a plug around the brake pedal on the firewall. Gm has two spots for fuses blanks in the relay box. I printed a wiring diagram off the web after a search. Gm has other wires in the general area for the other wires. I run 3 no. 12 wires back two hots and a ground from the firewall ground strap. I was able to complete the job in the evening. The brake devise was around $60.00 and the wiring harness around $15.00 and the pigtail $3.50. If you don't use the brake unit the trailer brakes don't work.
If you are towing a car you need one. I was pulling shingles doing about 70mph on the interstate and a man in a cadillac speed around me locked his brakes to exit. Without trailer brakes I would have rammed him.

As rhandwor said, you need to wire up to a 7-pin Bargman connector (at the hitch) if you plan on towing a trailer with electric brakes. The 7-pin Bargman has become the standard for RV trailers (pop-up campers, travel trailers, and even horse trailers). In addition to the 4 regular signals (running lights, left stop/turn, right stop/turn, and ground) it has a brake power line, a 12v "charge" line (for charging a battery on-board the trailer or powering other trailer 12v devices), and an AUX pin (often used for back-up lights on the trailer).

With electric trailer brakes you also need a brake controller in the tow vehicle (which controls the brake power line to the trailer) - spend a few extra bucks and get a Prodigy which is a true proportional controller and can be found for around $100 online. If you do need a brake controller and want more info on why a proportional controller is better let me know - suffice it to say I started with a basic time-delay controller and am switching to the Prodigy...

If the trailer has surge brakes (like all U-Haul trailers and most boat trailers), or a utility trailer without brakes, you can use the standard 4-pin connector.

As far as you 6-wire harness I have no idea (I had mine wired by the hitch shop). How long is the harness? Check out http://etrailer.com/, they have a complete T-One harness for $27.