etrailer | Replacement Breakaway Switch for Bright Way Trailer Breakaway Kits: The Breakdown

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Hi there trailer owners. Today we're going to be taking a look at and showing you how to either add or replace your breakaway switch with one here from Bright Way Group. It's just gonna be your traditional breakaway switch. You can use it either as a replacement for a damaged switch that you've got out there or you can use it to add one to a trailer that didn't have one already. This particular trailer here is my own personal trailer, I had no brakes on it whatsoever so we added those. And to ensure that we've got the maximum amount of safety here, we put a breakaway switch on the front.
So that way in the rare event of a catastrophic disconnect, we are gonna be as protected as we can be. With our switch, we do get our lead here that does come pre-installed onto the switch head there for the pin. You do get about four foot of lead there, so that's plenty of lead. You can kind of just see here compared to my safety chains. I'll have plenty of length to get up to my trailer, still a little bit extra there.
So it's nice that you've got plenty of length there. So that gives you a little bit of flexibility on where you wanna mount it. Whether you're wanting to mount it under on the underside, on top, on the side, wherever. That's all up to you. Pretty much everything you would expect from a breakaway switch.
It's pretty common on its size. There are smaller breakaway switches out there but me personally, I prefer this traditional size. It just feels nice and quality built. Some of the smaller ones feel a little bit cheaper to me. I like having the large area here at the back for my attachment.
Now you will have to provide your own hardware. And if you are gonna use any kind of junction box, you'll have to provide your own ring terminals. But it is just our standard to wire just like every other breakaway switch. So if you wanna follow along with us, we'll show you how to get this mounted up and wired into your trailer. We'll begin our installation here at the front of the trailer. We'll need to mount up our breakaway switch. Now, there's a few reasons why you would be wanting to install one of these. It could be because your old breakaway switch. You came out there and did the test by pulling the pin and it didn't activate your brakes. If that is the case, before you replace the switch there's a couple of things you should check first. You should charge up your battery, make sure your battery's topped off. Cause if your battery's weak it may not activate the brakes. And then do a quick visual check on your wiring to make sure that there's no breaks from there to the back. If you don't see anything like that going on, if there's no breaks and your battery's charged up and it still doesn't work, there's a good chance that the contacts are just worn out in your switch and no longer activating anymore. Cause these do sit out in the elements, so it's not uncommon for corrosion and stuff like that to occur on the inside of these after several of years of sitting outside. Now on our particular trailer here, this is my personal trailer and it didn't have trailer breaks on it. We just added them. So to make sure that we stay as safe as we can be when towing, we're gonna add a breakaway switch here to the front. There's a battery on this trailer that we can hook to to activate the switch in the event of a catastrophic disconnect. So we're gonna start by mounting it there. Normally you would just replace where your old switch was. Just take the old one off and put it in the same location. But since my trailer didn't have any brakes, we get to choose where we want to put it. Ideally, you want to put it in a location where, when the pin here is pulled in the event of a catastrophic disconnect, that it can pull the pin straight outward. Cause if you're pulling at an angle or anything like that, that could actually cause it to just break the plastic end off there and not pull the pin, defeating its purpose. But if you have a nice, straight pull like we see here, and it does take a little bit of force, It will come out of there. But again, you saw how much force it takes from doing a straight pull. So if you we're pulling at a side angle it would just never pull that out of there, it would break the end of it off of there. So that's one of the most important things, is making sure that we are gonna be able to have a good pull. So we're gonna put ours in this location here. That way it's gonna be close enough to the front that I k

[@cedaroakfarm8596]

Good video, I am about to replace the entire unit on my trailer. etrailer is a great resource for all the supplies.

[@jamespeterson7314]

on the wire that goes back to the Battery from the controller, does in connect to the + or - Post?

[@CaptSpaulding666]

Pulled mine out and it won't go all the way back in

[@etrailer]

The flat spring used to hold the pin in place is pretty stiff. You might not be pushing in hard enough. Take a peek in there to make sure the spring isn't damaged.
www.etrailer.com/Accessories-and-Parts/Bright-Way/3802348.html

[@CaptSpaulding666]

@@etrailer I get it all the way to the o ring but it easily comes back out. Cheap replacement for the whole breakaway kit so I just ordered a new one 👍 thanks for your quick reply.

[@etrailer]

You're welcome!