Towing Electrics

I have a 97 Diesel turbo 2,5 and i have the towing bracket which i intend to fit this weekend, i can get a kit from our local RR dealer which includes the socket and the wire with a plug on the end, there are two options, either a single end or a double end, my question is where on earth in the boot do i find out what i have and what to connect to? Thanks very much. Alan

The connectors should be behind the rear light clusters.

The connector for the basic lighting socket is on the right, and the connector the the aux. socket (the supplementary one you use for a caravan) is on the left.

You can fit either just the lighting socket, or both - up to you!

Matt.

its not really worth fitting the aux socket unless you intend to tow a caravan otherwise it will just get full of road salt and start to corrode.if on the other hand you intend to tow a caravan then deffo get the aux socket as this provides free charging for yer caravan battery and running yer fridge on the way to yer jollies

Speaking of road salt, I was coming back from France the other night and a bloody gritter pulled out in front of me and absolutely covered the P38 before I managed to overtake it. You wouldn't believe how long it took me the next day to try and get the thing clean. I never knew there were so many nooks and cranny's in the bodywork etc!

what is this thing called clean that you speak of

LOL. Well, I thought I'd better get that much salt off it quickly - probably did a years worth of damage overnight!

Mm. . .
Clean. . .

Not a familiar concept
MUD - definitely!!!

im not sure if we even possess a sponge in our house?

Getting sort of back on track, I'm about to wire in the towing (light) socket onto my P38. This is a generic light socket lead which unfortunately doesn't have the brillant LR socket to plug straight into the purpose made socket behind the RHS light cluster. On this basis, I'm planning to splice into the various wires to get the relevant feeds. To make my life easier and save me having to test each existing feed, does anyone have the various light wire colours I should be tapping into? While I'd love the convenience of a ready made socket, my local dealer is pricing these at around £40!

Thanks in advance

Jonny

I have just added the towing electrics to my 97 RR, there was a white multi socket behind the RHS light, i purchased two parts to the wiring from LR, the first bit has the rubber grommet on and connects into the white socket, this leads to two seperate sockets which the next part of the loom fits into and goes to the 7 pin socket, i paid £58 for the two parts. Alan

very easy to tell which wire is which. get a 12v tester and switch on 1 item at a time. (you will prob need help here, for the brake lights). either write down the color code or label the wires.

or use a multimeter. mine cost about a fiver from maplins.

ormus said:

very easy to tell which wire is which. get a 12v tester and switch on 1 item at a time. (you will prob need help here, for the brake lights). either write down the color code or label the wires.

or use a multimeter. mine cost about a fiver from maplins.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I've got my home made tester (in the form of a 12 (working) light bulb in a holder) so was happy to proceed using that. Where I was coming from was to see if someone had the wire colour scheme to hand. This is probably the lazy answer, but "reinventing wheels" and all that spring to mind!

I guess I've still saved £58 and a fiver!

Cheers for now

Jonny

the haynes workshop manual will have the wiring color scheme.
not too reliable though. hence i use the bulb tester, to at least check.

if you join close to the light then you can see which wire goes to which light

yes most of the time thats true. stop/tail lights can be a bit confusing though.

yeah