etrailer | Hopkins Replacement Break-Away Switch Review

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Check out some similar Trailer Breakaway Kit options:
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Full transcript: www.etrailer.c...
The Hopkins breakaway switch is a great replacement breakaway switch for your trailer. After a few years with the breakaway switch sitting out in the elements, depending on how it's stored, rust and corrosion can potentially occur fairly quickly if it is really exposed. And what will happen is if it is heavily corroded on the inside, when you pull the pin out, the contacts may not make good contact with another. They may not close all the way and touch and then it will not activate your brakes. So it is important that you test your breakaway switch before you go out. I usually just give it a pull and then just hop in the truck and throw it in gear without pressing the gas.
You should be able to usually roll a little bit forward or whatnot, maybe touch the gas a little bit if you're on some sort of an incline. And if it feels like your brakes are applied, then you know that you're good. You can insert your pin again and hit the road. But if you pull that pin, you hop in your truck, and it just pulls off, like you have no brakes, then you probably don't have a functioning breakaway switch or you could have an issue with your brakes. Obviously, if you got a brake controller, you can use that to verify if your brakes are working.
And if it works with the brake controller but not with the pin pulled, then you know that your switch here is no good and it needs to be replaced. Replacing your switch is easy, as it's only two wires, it just has a power wire and a brake output wire that goes to the electric brakes on your vehicle. And when the pin is pulled, it just jumps the contact between those two circuits together to send power directly from the battery back to the brakes. This switch comes in two different wiring length options. You can either get the 44 inch version, which is what we installed today, has 44-inch leads coming off the back, or you can get it in the 7 inch version which just has 7-inch wires coming out of the back.
So we'll begin our installation here by taking our switch. We've got two wires that we'll need to hook up and we'll need to mount it on the trailer with the tab there. To get this switch mounted up, we're gonna be using just a self-tapping screw. And then I did put a fender washer on it to increase the surface area, just to make sure that we've got good force on here. I also like that too 'cause it helps the switch, gives it kind of a chance to pivot a little bit better when it's in there.
So in case it's not perfectly straight, if you have a disconnect it can kind of pivot the switch to be straight with the vehicle and pull the pin out straight. So we're gonna mount it just on the bottom side of the trailer. We're gonna be putting it probably right here next to the switch box. That way it's close to the front. So that way our cable here will be long enough to be able to reach the vehicle and attach. So yeah, we're gonna put it in roughly that location there. And it's easier to just use the screw by itself to make the initial hole, and we can always zip it back out. So it is gonna take some pressure to get it to drill. There we go. And then we can just run it right back out, got our threads and everything made. We'll put our washer back on our bolt, line it up with our switch and then run it in there. That way you don't gotta hold a bunch of stuff together while you're trying to do this. And we've got our switch mounted and you can see it's got some pivot to it. So if it needs it, it can kind of transition to the best pull position for our vehicle there. So now we'll hook our wires up to our junction box here. I've already took the cover off the junction box. We have two wires here, a blue and a black. The black wire will go to power, so that way our switch has power going to it. And the blue wire will go to the electric brake, to the output that's gonna actually go to the brakes at the back. That way, if the pin gets pulled, it'll complete the circuit sending power from our battery down the black wire, through the switch, out the blue wire to our brakes at the back to activate 'em. So we're gonna push it through one of the grommets here on the side of our box. If you don't have a junction box and you don't wanna put one on, you'l

[@MrBubbahunt9]

One side if the switch shows 12 volts the other shows continuity to ground...is that right?

[@brich2929]

great vid, guys!

[@etrailer]

Thanks!
www.etrailer.com/Accessories-and-Parts/Hopkins/HM20010.html