Hopkins Custom Tail Light Wiring Kit Installation - 2018 Ford F-150
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How to Install the Hopkins Custom Tail Light Wiring Kit on a 2018 Ford F-150
Speaker 1: Today on our 2018 Ford F150 you're gonna be taking a look at, I'm gonna show you how to install a Hopkins custom taillight wiring kit for towed vehicles, part number HM56009. This is what your wiring kit's gonna look like when you get it. This si gonna be a wiring kit for towed vehicles, when it's being towed, or pulled behind your RV or your motor home. The nice thing about this wiring kit is we don't have to do any splicing into the vehicle wiring. It's gonna plug directly into the existing wiring on the back of the vehicle.This has got your diodes in it, and what that's gonna do, it's gonna protect your vehicle from any back feed from the motor home if there's a short. So it's gonna protect your factory wiring on your towed vehicle as well as your motor home.This is your four-pole connection that you're gonna route to the front of the vehicle.
If you're using four-pole off the back of your RV, you just find a place to mount this, and this would sit inside of here, and that would hold it in place. You'll have two self-tapping screws to hold it.Now, for your installation here, our RV has a seven-pole plug on the back. So if your RV has a seven-pole plug, you'll want to pick up an umbilical cord. With that umbilical cord, you'll also get a six-pole plug. Pick one of those up here at etrailer.com using part number 47054.
It's gonna come with your six-pole plug, like I mentioned, and what we're gonna do is you're actually going to cut off the four-pole plug here on the end, and we're gonna tie that right into the six-pole plug. Six-pole plug, tying those wires in is very easy. It's gonna come with directions that are numbered, and tell you which one goes where. Green wire is always gonna be your right turn signal, yellow is gonna be your driver's side or left-turn signal, brown is gonna be running lights, and white is gonna be your grounds.Locate our wiring that we're gonna be plugging this into. Come to the back of the vehicle.
Our spare tire will come right to the right side on the inside of our frame rail. Now, we're on the driver's side, and you'll see three different plugs up here. They all look the same, except this one here. It's the same color as this. Now, you can't get these confused, because this plug will not fit in the black ones.
It will only fit in this grayish-colored one.So all we're gonna do is we're gonna unplug it. You're gonna push in on that tab. Go ahead and add dielectric grease to our plug. And then we're simply just gonna plug our connection in, and match our plugs. Push them in til they click.Now I'm gonna take my wiring. I'm gonna have to mount this somewhere safe, but I'm gonna take this, I'm gonna pull it over top of my frame rail, see if I can't get this up tight on some existing wiring up there. So we're just gonna follow our plug right over the top here. Get this pulled up. Just kind of bundling up my wire here, to keep it all together.Now you take this, and you see all this existing wiring up here I want to make sure I get above my spare tire, so my tire doesn't interfere, if I need to take it down. I think I'm gonna run a zip tie right through here, right up against that wiring right there.Now I'm gonna route my plug up to the front of my vehicle. Let me get that done really quick, and I'll show you how I did it. So how I ran it to the front waws, I just followed the existing wiring to the front of the vehicle. Right here, from the side of the spare tire, if you look up right along the frame rail, you can see existing wiring here. I just zip tied right to it. Run right along, again, staying on the inside of the frame rail. You'll get a glimpse of it every once in a while.When I got to here, I followed the wiring to the outside of the frame rail, zip tied it on this hard line right here, and I could've probably fed it behind here, but this wiring comes along the outside, so I just zip tied right to this bracket. Went over top of this piece here. We want to make sure we're staying away from anything moving, like the suspension components down here. I zip tied it to the existing wiring up here. Zip tied on top, zip tied here, went over top of this part of my frame, went back over top of the frame here, down to here.Now, if you're going to utilize the four-pole plug, you just need to find a place to mount this, and you can mount it anywhere that you feel comfortable mounting it. Just make sure that if it's on plastic, the plastic is durable enough that it's gonna hold it when you're pulling and pushing on the plug itself.Again, as I mentioned at the beginning, we are gonna be using a six-pole plug that comes with the umbilical cord. I already have it mounted. I'm gonna cut this off, and I'm gonna feed it up through the back, and then I'll pull this off, and then mount my wires to that plug.This customer actually wanted, when this is not in use, for his license plate to cover all those connections. Most of the time, when we do these, you'll have your air fitting or your connections outside. So that's gonna be a matter of personal preference, how you want to do it. He just asked for it to be like that, because this is a removable license plate holder, and this is the way it turned out.And if you look on the back, it's gonna tell you, GD for ground, LT for left turn. TM's gonna be running lights, RT, right turn. And then anything else you add, charge line kit, batter charge line, would go for the center post there. If you go with the six-pole plug, just make sure you put the boot on first, before you put your wires onto your plug, or else you're gonna have to take them back off.Now, using an alternate power source, we're gonna test out our wiring. This is gonna simulate being hooked up to our RV. Taillights, left turn, brake lights, right turn. That'll do it for a look at an installation on the Hopkins custom taillight wiring kit for towed vehicles, part number HM56009, on our 2018 Ford F150.
Info for this part was:
Video Edited:
Jacob T
Video Edited:
Chris R
Video by:
Dustin K
Video by:
Jonathan Y
Installed by:
Cole B
Test Fit:
Shane H
Test Fit:
David F
Test Fit:
Bradley B
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Ryan A.
12/22/2021
Do you need any additional wiring beside this when using a Roadmaster EvenBrake? I just purchased a second vehicle kit from etrailer for this. Prior to the Evenbrake I had an original brake buddy. With the EvenBrake, they send a whole brake light relay kit of their own. I already had this Hopkins installed though on my 2017 F150 so would rather not splice a bunch of wires if I could continue using the Hopkins. Do I need to splice the purple white wire in F150 brake light switch and run it to the ICX sender for the Even Brake? Or is that not needed since I have the Hopkins custom tail light wiring?