Which harness

[Andre D]

Hi there,
new member here and i am interested in getting a trillium trailer.Great site and looking forward to getting a lot of help from the members here.

I am having a tow bar with harness put in and was wondering which harness connector,4 or 7 point, would be the most suitable to have, should i even have the harness put in before i have a trailer? A mitsubishi Delica is my tow vehicle.
Andre

[Frederick L. Simson]

...was wondering which harness connector,4 or 7 point, would be the most suitable to have, should i even have the harness put in before i have a trailer?

The default wiring harness for most auto manufacturers nowadays is the 4-pin flat connector. If you are looking to get a simple 13' Trailer that does not have brakes, and you could make do without the "House Battery Charge Line" this connector would be adaquate. It would activate the Brake Lights, Turn Signals, and the Running/Side Marker Lights.

However, if you want Electric Brakes to function on your trailer, and be able to connect the trailer's battery to the tow vehicle's alternator/generator/charging system, then you'd need a bigger harness with more connectors. I am not familiar with the Mitsubishi Delica. Do they have a comparable vehicle sold in the US under a different name?

I have a 4-pin flat harness "hard-wired" into my tow vehicle's electrical system. (This was a module provided by Honda) It plugs into the back of the 7-pin recepticle mounted on the hitch receiver. This recepticle has the Brake Controller Output and the Battery Charge Line, as well as the Trailer Back-up Lights hard wired into it. This gives me [b]both possibilities. If I am towing a small simple trailer, I unplug the 4-pin flat from the back of the 7-pin round recepticle, bypassing it, and plug that directly to the trailer. If I am towing my 16' Fiber Stream, I go thru the 7-pin round recepticle and have all the circuits activated.

[Booker B.]

Hi Andre,

I recommend getting the 7 pin wiring as I also recommend getting electric brakes at some point for your trailer. Makes a huge difference doing the Rockies. If your Trillium doesn't come with a 7 pin there are cheap adapters at Lordco for them - don't try and find them at Canadian Tire (been there done that).

Do the Delica's have enough power to tow a Trillium? When I was looking at them I remember the engines being rather small to pull a 1500lb trailer.

EDIT: Fredrick, the Delica is a right hand drive diesel van that is being imported into Canada. They are great little vans and are in amazing shape considering they are 15 years old.

[Doug Mager]

Firstly Andre, to our egg create!!

The appended answers do well to aid in your wiring concerns having a 7-pin plug allows more 'options' than running with a 4-pin. Yes by all means BRAKES would be an asset, especially IF your tow vehicle might be marginal for the intended towing purpose.

Why not come out to our Egg Meet held in the spring (May) at The Fort Campground in Ft.Langley? Lots of trailers to drool over and get ideas from too. MAYBE one day (weekend??) we can even entice Booker into canoeing off of The Rock and come for a visit/stay???

NOTE: there are plug-in adapters to go from 4 to 7 pin and versa/vice, LOL!

[Andre D]

Thanks for the replies, i think i will get the 7 pin put on and get an adapter if need be. A rally in the spring sounds great, i will look forward to it.
The Delica is rated to pull a small trailer from what i can find on the internet but i think having electric brakes put in will be a definite modification.
Andre

[Booker B.]

Hi Andre,

I am sure you have found this post at the Delica owners Canadian Forum but I thought others might be interested:
<a href="http://www.delica.ca/forum/towing-tow-hitch-905.html" target="_blank">
Mitsubishi Delica Tow Hitch / Towing Capacity</a>

The one thing I would worry about is the legality of towing with this imported vehicle in case you get into an accident - if there is no North American owners manual stating towing capacity . In Canada you would be probably be ok but there are many stories of lawsuits in the USA around vehicles in accidents when towing capacity is exceeded etc...

[Pete Dumbleton]

Keep in mind that towing has three requirements:

Pulling
Stopping
Control

Most inexperienced folks only consider the Pulling part, but there's a lot more to it -- Power isn't what gets you in the ditch or the opposing traffic...