Towbar Fitting - Electrics - Page 2

TEOC · 11th August 2011, 17:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miff

Where is the "12v feed from the fusebox tow bar socket"? Thanks.

Bump.

Just fitted the metal bits, suck on the 12V feed.

HarryM1BYT · 11th August 2011, 20:07

Very much from my memory - look for a yellow with red tracer, might be loose behind the glove box / fuse box area.

trikey · 13th August 2011, 17:25

These are the wires you are after, sometimes tucked down behind the plastic cover on the passengers LH side.

Chuckles · 15th January 2012, 15:52

Am I missing something here?

When I had my 825 many years ago, there was a purpose dedicated socket on the cars wiring loom in the boot, ready to take the 7N electrics.

I have just bought my 2.0 Saloon and as yet not looked into the towing aspect, but was expecting the same facility, particularly with modern day electrics as they are now.

Shabbs · 9th February 2012, 07:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryM1BYT

Very much from my memory - look for a yellow with red tracer, might be loose behind the glove box / fuse box area.

Is the yellow/red a switched live feed and what is the green?

BX51 2.0 V6 Tourer · 13th February 2012, 20:17

Can I please have a little help from those with personal experience.
2001 Connie tourer - Hi line sat nav etc.
Ok so fitting a tow bar. That was the simple bit. Connecting up the electrics - fine I need the relay, did a bit of research and then sorting out the power feed to the relay. the picture from Trikey 13th Aug is what I am after.

Perhaps a better view is at #15 on this thread http://forums.mg-rover.org/showthread.php?t=366264

There are some more pictures. OK so dissembling quite a bit of the car now to expose the area around the fuse box
Here is what I can see

CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE

SSCN8660.JPG
As you see - no sign of the thick orange with the grey stripe ! Where is it !

SSCN8664.JPG
here is the view from the another angle - still nothing !

SSCN8662.JPG
nothing around the fuse box !

SSCN8661.JPG
still no sign !

SSCN8663.JPG
There was this loose fly-lead but this appears to have a purpose 2 socket connector on the end. (What is this for ?)

I have a car with highline nav and TV in it. Exactly where I want to come through into the area to the rear of the spare wheel under the deck floor there are two boxes with power to them, but I presume these are protected by a fairly modest 5 amp fuse. So I cannot use that.

Am I just being dumb and the wire and termination are still hidden out of sight or are some cars not equipped with the termination ? [As Chuckles remarks - this does somewhat beggar the question - why isn't there a fused power line to the boot area ? ]

If my car has no available termination - is there an unused fuse socket with terminal I can solder onto or do I need to buy a pack of them and stick one on the end of a wire and insert it into a spare socket on the fuse board ? If so - which one ?

BX51 2.0 V6 Tourer · 16th February 2012, 11:12

OK so I needed to find a 12 v supply.
So I needed to get to the back of the in-car fuse box.

You can remove the screws that hold the the fuse box in place but it remains quite impossible to do anything with it, you need more access.
So that means taking the glove box out.

That means taking the 6 CD player (that fits very awkwardly, right in the centre of the box,) out. So that was 4 nuts underneath and then a flylead to be disconnected.

Glove box removal. Unscrew the 3 screws that fit along the top edge of the box into the dash. The lower fixings are hidden. Feeling across the felt that lines the lower part of the glove box, I felt 3 areas with hollows below them. I then lifted the felt (the glue is certainly selected for strength).

SSCN8675.JPG

This revealed 3 more screws, which could then be removed and then the glove box could be taken out.

This allowed far better access to the fuse box and I was able to rotate it.

SSCN8676.JPG

When I looked behind it I could see the orange and slate (OS) wire in a 3 block connector, taped to the harness.
SSCN8677.JPG
This shows and better view of the connector
SSCN8674.JPG
and again
SSCN8673.JPG
This is a feed protected by a 50Amp fuse from the engine bay fuse box. There it is noted as "Trailer".

I selected to put a 2 mm2 lead directly into the OS supply and ran that down the LH side of the car following the main harness. This was a little of an overkill in terms of supply but it means I have a good supply if ever I want to fit the 2nd socket to provide feed for another battery etc.

Passing the wire along like this does mean that you have a lot of side trim and carpet to lift and needless to say most of the clips break as you are removing them ! I was fitting it to a Tourer and so all the side trim had to come out in the load bay ! At this stage there was quite a pile of things that had come off the car !

Connecting up the relay was fine. I put a 25amp fuse at the relay, just as the power lead goes into it. I soldered into the normal lighting wires. With care, you can cut the insulation back and yet not cut any of the copper wires, then solder the signal feed for the relay onto the exposed copper then cover up with insulating tape. This means there are no breaks in the original harness and nothing extra to go wrong. I did intend to put the relay down between the two boxes at the rear of the spare wheel space, but that meant another set of soldered joints as the leads supplied with the relay were not long enough so I went for behind the LH trim up behind the wheel arch. You need a plentiful supply of cable ties to secure the harness back onto the various clips and secure in place.

I paired up the signal leads for the indicator lights to the LH side only, to save running another lead to the RHS harness. Annoying is the need to run a lead to the RHS harness to pick up the signal for the RH turn indicator. (More trim to remove !)

I will add a note to the instructions in the technical section. Nothing works when connected as shown because the White of the lead to the 7 pin socket needs to be Earthed. Again this was done by soldering to one of the main harness black leads that are on their way to an Earthing point.

Finding that supply too quite a bit of time, mainly as I dithered before deciding that I just had to remove the CD player and glove box. Stripping out all that trim was a big hassle for me as I had not taken it off a Rover 75 before and so I was not that familiar with the clip positions.

A lot of time and a lot of hassle but pleased with the outcome now. I do know that if I had taken it to a "professional" to be done, trim would have been broken, scotchlocks would have been used and so it would have worked for 1 year but not two and I would have had an endless argument about the trim that would only be solved by me purchasing more and replacing it myself.

Two recent events.

One
My wifes Punto went in for lock exchange after a thief had forced the locks and broken in. We must have been back and forth about 4 times to rectify trim broken by their fitters. After a final time when they broke the trim on the window surround, whilst changing the trim around the mirror, that they had broken when changing the door card, which they had broken when changing the lock on one door, I gave up and refused to let them have the car back. Get the trim - and I will fit it. And this was a Fiat main dealer ! Earlier the lock had come out of a door, on the end of the key (just like a lolly) when the salesman was showing this (very difficult) customer, what a good job they had done. I think my sarcasm - "oh that is interesting, are the locks meant to come out like that" was somewhat lost on the foreman.

Two
Neighbours - a lovely couple, husband unwell, had to leave work. Long sad story - no proper recovery, wife has to do most everything. Came to a conclusion so to put that behind them they bought a brand new car and had it fitted at the dealer with twin towing sockets so that they could tow their caravan to the south coast and take a very well deserved holiday. New car for holiday.

I came across them at a quiet junction in the road - not yet out of the village. Worried about the lights on the caravan. They had called the AA. I helped out whilst they were waiting - nothing working. Suggested it was most likely a fuse. Multimeter on the sockets - nothing. Traced the lead into the boot and up to the rear seat - no joins. They described dealer fitment. I went to the fuse box and with the handbook went through every likely fuse. All good. Found the feed for the supply - looked good. The AA man turned up - he would look after everything. I left.

3 hours later - AA man could not fix it car went back to the main dealer. It came back the next day. The main dealer had placed the fuse holder in the power supply not at any sensible termination point, but on the harness as it went along the sill in the rear footwell. Yes, not the best place for the fuse - should have written in the hand book on the fuse page where they had fitted the fuse for the towing harness. Best money paid, the customer could not have done any more - let down by poor fitting/attention to detail. Holiday started again around 30 hours after it should have. Were scotchlocks used - when will they fail ? Maybe they will be fine. My experiences is that I and too many of my friends have had then fail.

Was fitting it myself worth the hassle? Yes because it would be less hassle than the alternative. If you find a good and reliable mechanic treat him well. He will be worth his weight.

spiny · 16th February 2012, 14:52

BX51 Just done the same as you, fitted towbar and original rover loom to a tourer, towbar was the easy bit, electric i did struggle with, the instruction book was worse than useless, but took tablet out to car and using photos found on here

managed it.
Never have I seen such a pile of trim,

looked like I was breaking the car, ended up with head torches putting it all on, but really impressed that it all worked, and impressed with the way the 'proper' loom works on lights, sensors etc.
very gratifying when it was done though!

HarryM1BYT · 16th February 2012, 15:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by BX51 2.0 V6 Tourer

Was fitting it myself worth the hassle? Yes because it would be less hassle than the alternative. If you find a good and reliable mechanic treat him well. He will be worth his weight.

An interesting read and unfortunately - all very true

I will just make the point that I personally would always run at least a 4mm from the front to the back as the main feed, to avoid volts drop. You then have spare capacity for caravan battery charging, the fridge and the lights without too much impact upon the voltage when it eventually gets to the back of the caravan.

My OS didn't terminate in a plug, it was just bent over and taped. Your thin green to the light switch, seems to be already at that plug, but mine had to be run across to the switch.

BX51 2.0 V6 Tourer · 17th February 2012, 10:33

Just doing my ebay feedback - I recommend :

Towbar £78
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3803937878...84.m1439.l2649

Relay £14.20
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2306955032...84.m1439.l2649

Free delivery
Total 92.40

Very good quality and price.
And for putting back on our little mountain of trim - clip for B post etc part number EYC106710 (yellow) - available in white at bresco
£7.49 for 15. part number AP3954P
http://www.bresco.com/acatalog/BMW.html

11th August 2011, 20:07	#12
HarryM1BYT This is my second home 75 Contemporary SE Mk II 2004 Man. Sal. CDTi 135ps, FBH on red diesel, WinCE6 DD Join Date: May 2010 Location: Leeds Posts: 17,273 Thanks: 2,160 Thanked 2,061 Times in 1,586 Posts	Very much from my memory - look for a yellow with red tracer, might be loose behind the glove box / fuse box area. __________________ Harry How To's and items I offer for free, or just to cover the cost of my expenses... http://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/foru...40#post1764540 Fix a poor handbrake; DIY ABS diagnostic unit; Loan of the spanner needed to change the CDT belts; free OBD diagnostics +MAF; Correct Bosch MAF cheap; DVB-T install in an ex-hi-line system; DD install with a HK amp; FBH servicing. I've taken a vow of poverty. To annoy me, send money.

15th January 2012, 15:52	#14
Chuckles Gets stuck in NOW a Club Tourer was 1999 - 75 2.0Ltr Connoisseur SE petrol Saloon Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Iwerne Minster, Dorset Posts: 552 Thanks: 63 Thanked 54 Times in 47 Posts	Am I missing something here? When I had my 825 many years ago, there was a purpose dedicated socket on the cars wiring loom in the boot, ready to take the 7N electrics. I have just bought my 2.0 Saloon and as yet not looked into the towing aspect, but was expecting the same facility, particularly with modern day electrics as they are now. __________________ Chuck Nth. Dorset. UK Membership #1896 Don't take life so seriously.... it is not permanent!

13th February 2012, 20:17	#16
BX51 2.0 V6 Tourer Avid contributor Rover 75 Tourer Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Cardiff Posts: 105 Thanks: 0 Thanked 6 Times in 4 Posts	Where is the feed ? Can I please have a little help from those with personal experience. 2001 Connie tourer - Hi line sat nav etc. Ok so fitting a tow bar. That was the simple bit. Connecting up the electrics - fine I need the relay, did a bit of research and then sorting out the power feed to the relay. the picture from Trikey 13th Aug is what I am after. Perhaps a better view is at #15 on this thread http://forums.mg-rover.org/showthread.php?t=366264 There are some more pictures. OK so dissembling quite a bit of the car now to expose the area around the fuse box Here is what I can see CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE SSCN8660.JPG As you see - no sign of the thick orange with the grey stripe ! Where is it ! SSCN8664.JPG here is the view from the another angle - still nothing ! SSCN8662.JPG nothing around the fuse box ! SSCN8661.JPG still no sign ! SSCN8663.JPG There was this loose fly-lead but this appears to have a purpose 2 socket connector on the end. (What is this for ?) I have a car with highline nav and TV in it. Exactly where I want to come through into the area to the rear of the spare wheel under the deck floor there are two boxes with power to them, but I presume these are protected by a fairly modest 5 amp fuse. So I cannot use that. Am I just being dumb and the wire and termination are still hidden out of sight or are some cars not equipped with the termination ? [As Chuckles remarks - this does somewhat beggar the question - why isn't there a fused power line to the boot area ? ] If my car has no available termination - is there an unused fuse socket with terminal I can solder onto or do I need to buy a pack of them and stick one on the end of a wire and insert it into a spare socket on the fuse board ? If so - which one ? Last edited by BX51 2.0 V6 Tourer; 16th February 2012 at 11:13..

16th February 2012, 11:12	#17
BX51 2.0 V6 Tourer Avid contributor Rover 75 Tourer Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Cardiff Posts: 105 Thanks: 0 Thanked 6 Times in 4 Posts	Power lead Found OK so I needed to find a 12 v supply. So I needed to get to the back of the in-car fuse box. You can remove the screws that hold the the fuse box in place but it remains quite impossible to do anything with it, you need more access. So that means taking the glove box out. That means taking the 6 CD player (that fits very awkwardly, right in the centre of the box,) out. So that was 4 nuts underneath and then a flylead to be disconnected. Glove box removal. Unscrew the 3 screws that fit along the top edge of the box into the dash. The lower fixings are hidden. Feeling across the felt that lines the lower part of the glove box, I felt 3 areas with hollows below them. I then lifted the felt (the glue is certainly selected for strength). SSCN8675.JPG This revealed 3 more screws, which could then be removed and then the glove box could be taken out. This allowed far better access to the fuse box and I was able to rotate it. SSCN8676.JPG When I looked behind it I could see the orange and slate (OS) wire in a 3 block connector, taped to the harness. SSCN8677.JPG This shows and better view of the connector SSCN8674.JPG and again SSCN8673.JPG This is a feed protected by a 50Amp fuse from the engine bay fuse box. There it is noted as "Trailer". I selected to put a 2 mm2 lead directly into the OS supply and ran that down the LH side of the car following the main harness. This was a little of an overkill in terms of supply but it means I have a good supply if ever I want to fit the 2nd socket to provide feed for another battery etc. Passing the wire along like this does mean that you have a lot of side trim and carpet to lift and needless to say most of the clips break as you are removing them ! I was fitting it to a Tourer and so all the side trim had to come out in the load bay ! At this stage there was quite a pile of things that had come off the car ! Connecting up the relay was fine. I put a 25amp fuse at the relay, just as the power lead goes into it. I soldered into the normal lighting wires. With care, you can cut the insulation back and yet not cut any of the copper wires, then solder the signal feed for the relay onto the exposed copper then cover up with insulating tape. This means there are no breaks in the original harness and nothing extra to go wrong. I did intend to put the relay down between the two boxes at the rear of the spare wheel space, but that meant another set of soldered joints as the leads supplied with the relay were not long enough so I went for behind the LH trim up behind the wheel arch. You need a plentiful supply of cable ties to secure the harness back onto the various clips and secure in place. I paired up the signal leads for the indicator lights to the LH side only, to save running another lead to the RHS harness. Annoying is the need to run a lead to the RHS harness to pick up the signal for the RH turn indicator. (More trim to remove !) I will add a note to the instructions in the technical section. Nothing works when connected as shown because the White of the lead to the 7 pin socket needs to be Earthed. Again this was done by soldering to one of the main harness black leads that are on their way to an Earthing point. Finding that supply too quite a bit of time, mainly as I dithered before deciding that I just had to remove the CD player and glove box. Stripping out all that trim was a big hassle for me as I had not taken it off a Rover 75 before and so I was not that familiar with the clip positions. A lot of time and a lot of hassle but pleased with the outcome now. I do know that if I had taken it to a "professional" to be done, trim would have been broken, scotchlocks would have been used and so it would have worked for 1 year but not two and I would have had an endless argument about the trim that would only be solved by me purchasing more and replacing it myself. Two recent events. One My wifes Punto went in for lock exchange after a thief had forced the locks and broken in. We must have been back and forth about 4 times to rectify trim broken by their fitters. After a final time when they broke the trim on the window surround, whilst changing the trim around the mirror, that they had broken when changing the door card, which they had broken when changing the lock on one door, I gave up and refused to let them have the car back. Get the trim - and I will fit it. And this was a Fiat main dealer ! Earlier the lock had come out of a door, on the end of the key (just like a lolly) when the salesman was showing this (very difficult) customer, what a good job they had done. I think my sarcasm - "oh that is interesting, are the locks meant to come out like that" was somewhat lost on the foreman. Two Neighbours - a lovely couple, husband unwell, had to leave work. Long sad story - no proper recovery, wife has to do most everything. Came to a conclusion so to put that behind them they bought a brand new car and had it fitted at the dealer with twin towing sockets so that they could tow their caravan to the south coast and take a very well deserved holiday. New car for holiday. I came across them at a quiet junction in the road - not yet out of the village. Worried about the lights on the caravan. They had called the AA. I helped out whilst they were waiting - nothing working. Suggested it was most likely a fuse. Multimeter on the sockets - nothing. Traced the lead into the boot and up to the rear seat - no joins. They described dealer fitment. I went to the fuse box and with the handbook went through every likely fuse. All good. Found the feed for the supply - looked good. The AA man turned up - he would look after everything. I left. 3 hours later - AA man could not fix it car went back to the main dealer. It came back the next day. The main dealer had placed the fuse holder in the power supply not at any sensible termination point, but on the harness as it went along the sill in the rear footwell. Yes, not the best place for the fuse - should have written in the hand book on the fuse page where they had fitted the fuse for the towing harness. Best money paid, the customer could not have done any more - let down by poor fitting/attention to detail. Holiday started again around 30 hours after it should have. Were scotchlocks used - when will they fail ? Maybe they will be fine. My experiences is that I and too many of my friends have had then fail. Was fitting it myself worth the hassle? Yes because it would be less hassle than the alternative. If you find a good and reliable mechanic treat him well. He will be worth his weight. Last edited by BX51 2.0 V6 Tourer; 16th February 2012 at 11:31..

17th February 2012, 10:33	#20
BX51 2.0 V6 Tourer Avid contributor Rover 75 Tourer Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Cardiff Posts: 105 Thanks: 0 Thanked 6 Times in 4 Posts	Ebay feedback Just doing my ebay feedback - I recommend : Towbar £78 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3803937878...84.m1439.l2649 Relay £14.20 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2306955032...84.m1439.l2649 Free delivery Total 92.40 Very good quality and price. And for putting back on our little mountain of trim - clip for B post etc part number EYC106710 (yellow) - available in white at bresco £7.49 for 15. part number AP3954P http://www.bresco.com/acatalog/BMW.html Last edited by BX51 2.0 V6 Tourer; 17th February 2012 at 15:45..

13th August 2011, 17:25	#13
trikey Premium Trader Rover 75 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Devon Posts: 33,772 Thanks: 8,837 Thanked 14,831 Times in 8,030 Posts	These are the wires you are after, sometimes tucked down behind the plastic cover on the passengers LH side.

16th February 2012, 14:52	#18
spiny Regular poster Rover 75 CDTi Connoisseur SE Auto Tourer Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Pulloxhill Posts: 47 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	BX51 Just done the same as you, fitted towbar and original rover loom to a tourer, towbar was the easy bit, electric i did struggle with, the instruction book was worse than useless, but took tablet out to car and using photos found on here managed it. Never have I seen such a pile of trim, looked like I was breaking the car, ended up with head torches putting it all on, but really impressed that it all worked, and impressed with the way the 'proper' loom works on lights, sensors etc. very gratifying when it was done though!