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Old 06-27-2018, 02:23 AM   #1
Senior Member
 
Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: Vegas 24.1
State: Washington
Posts: 179
THOR #10717
How to wire brake controller on Thor Vegas 2018

How to wire brake controller on Thor Vegas 2018:

The Thor Vegas 2018 does not come with a brake controller wiring harness behind the dash, unlike most other RVs. The 7 way RV style trailer plug harness is pre-wired next to the tow hitch, except that the trailer brake wire (blue 10 AWG) is not run all the way to the driver area. This wire is #2 in the image below.

I purchased a Tekonsha 90195 P3 Electronic Brake Control.
In general this is the wiring instructions:
+12V – Connect the black 12 AWG wire from the brake controller harness to the thin (~14 AWG) brown/red wire in the wire harness that is located to the right and above of the gas pedal with a blue 18-14 AWG Quick Splice Wire Tap Connector:
Photo 1-black-wire-to-power.jpg
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Ground – Connect the white wire from the brake controller harness to the ring and self-tapping screw to ground to firewall located to the right and above the gas pedal.
Photo 2-white-wire-to-ground.jpg
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Brake signal – Connect the red wire from the brake controller harness into violet/white wire coming out of brake pedal switch with a red 22-18 AWG Quick Splice Wire Tap Connector:
Photo 3-wire-to-brake-wire.jpg
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Trailer brake – Connect to 12 gauge blue wire that deadends in the angled Ford chassis harness connector located under the driver side wheel. This is the hardest step and took the most time to perform. The wire from the trailer connector is a 10 AWG blue wire.
Photo 4-10AWG-wire-from-trailer-pin-to-ford-harness.jpg
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This wire connects into the ford harness and turns into a 12 AWG light blue wire near the gas tank.
Photo 5-trailer-harness-to-ford-harness-behind-gas-tank.jpg
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The ford harness travels along the frame rail and dead ends into another angled ford harness that is located near the driver side wheel. The two harnesses can be seperated by unbolting them.

Photo 6-ford-harness-under-driver-wheel-distance.jpg
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Photo 7-ford-harness-under-driver-wheel.jpg
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This harness has to be carefully spliced open with a razor to expose the 12 AWG ligth blue wire. Its located at the corner of the wire harness. You can see that the other ford wiring harness has no female end and no wire on the other side, which is what is meant by dead ending. I then used a red 22-18 AWG Quick Splice Wire Tap Connector to tap a new black 18 AWG wire to the blue ford wire.
I then ran this new wire into the engine bay by going into the RV and fishing a bike shifter cable (stiff metal wire) through the wire loom located to the left side of the driver seat.
Photo 8-driver-side-firewall-wire-into-RV.jpg
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Here is where the wire comes into the firewall from the engine bay:
Photo 9-engine-bay-wire-through-firewall.jpg
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I then attached the new black wire from the engine bay to the shifter cable wire with tape and then pulled the wire from inside the RV into the RV. I then connected this wire to the blue wire on the brake controller harness.
Photo 10-brake-controller.jpg
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Let me know if this is need more clarification. This was a fairly challenging project and took me a while to trace the brake controller wire.

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Old 03-09-2020, 12:59 AM   #2
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
State: Georgia
Posts: 1
THOR #18311
read your post question is this the same for a 2018 25.5 vegas thanks brent
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Old 06-02-2020, 05:02 PM   #3
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
State: Kentucky
Posts: 6
THOR #18991
Question Break Control harness under dash

I have a 2020 Palazio diesel pusher I'm trying to put a brake indicator light for my towed vehicle on the dash. I have looked everywhere for the brake wire harness that should be on the left side. Please please please can somebody please help me find the brake controller Cable a picture would be great thank you in advance.
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Old 06-02-2020, 06:07 PM   #4
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: Vegas 24.1
State: Washington
Posts: 179
THOR #10717
Quote:
Originally Posted by gtaylor42141 View Post
I have a 2020 Palazio diesel pusher I'm trying to put a brake indicator light for my towed vehicle on the dash. I have looked everywhere for the brake wire harness that should be on the left side. Please please please can somebody please help me find the brake controller Cable a picture would be great thank you in advance.
I dont know the details of your vehicle- but you probably dont have a harness built into your car. You will need to run new wires for the brake controller. Its a bit challenging, which is why i posted this tutorial.
What i did wound up not working because the OEM wire size was too small for the current and run length. I am sure on your vehicle being very long you will need fairly large (12-14 AWG) wire for the brake controller.

Good luck!
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Old 06-04-2020, 01:51 AM   #5
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Brand: Still Looking
Model: Fleetwood Bounder 35P
State: Florida
Posts: 475
THOR #15054
Quote:
Originally Posted by gte534j View Post
I dont know the details of your vehicle- but you probably dont have a harness built into your car. You will need to run new wires for the brake controller. Its a bit challenging, which is why i posted this tutorial.
What i did wound up not working because the OEM wire size was too small for the current and run length. I am sure on your vehicle being very long you will need fairly large (12-14 AWG) wire for the brake controller.

Good luck!
First of all, incredible job, gte! I had a 24.1 until last year and faced the same dilemma. I now have a 37' Fleetwood that doesn't have that issue, so it became moot.

As for others, they don't HAVE to go the route that you did, if (like me) they feel that is beyond their technical abilities. There is the Curt Echo, a wireless brake controller that plugs into your 7-pin outlet. It is incredible and gets rave reviews. The best part about it is, once you program it from your phone, the info is stored locally in the Echo, so even if your phone died (or you lost connection while driving, or it was stolen, or...) the Echo will still know to control your brakes just the way you told it to. The ONLY thing you would lose would be the ability to manually apply brakes, and that would only be until you re-established your connection. It doesn't have to be to your phone; it can be to ANY phone, even a spare!

Here is a link to that product on etrailer.com . It gives a good description and almost 200 reviews of that product.

https://www.etrailer.com/Brake-Contr...IaArP2EALw_wcB

Good luck to all!
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Old 08-16-2021, 12:33 AM   #6
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
State: Saskatchewan
Posts: 12
THOR #24531
Quote:
Originally Posted by gte534j View Post
I dont know the details of your vehicle- but you probably dont have a harness built into your car. You will need to run new wires for the brake controller. Its a bit challenging, which is why i posted this tutorial.
What i did wound up not working because the OEM wire size was too small for the current and run length. I am sure on your vehicle being very long you will need fairly large (12-14 AWG) wire for the brake controller.

Good luck!
Hi, i used your post to wire my 25.2. I then read the comments and you said it didn't work. What was the trouble. was it the 18 gauge you used for the blue wire? I used a bit heavier. I think 14 maybe. I plugged it in to my trailer and it appears to work. How did you end up fixing yours up?
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Old 09-23-2021, 01:00 PM   #7
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: Gemini 23tb
State: Georgia
Posts: 16
THOR #16970
I like the way the echo works but what if the blue (brake) wire is not hooked up to anything. How does it get a signal
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