Member Since: 02 Feb 2012
Location: Woking
Posts: 4
Fitting a tow bar
Hello all.
Here's how I fitted a tow bar to wifey's car. It took about 8 hours all in all. I bought the tow bar complete with electrics, and a bypass relay (including audible buzzer) from
Tools:
Torque wrench
24" breaker bar or a piece of scaffolding tube etc. to extend your ratchet's moment.
T40 torx bit
Multimeter
The relay is needed because the Freelander 2's ECU measures current consumption through the lamps. If you splice the trailer electrics into the rear light wiring in the traditional way, the ECU will likely detect it as a bulb failure (short), and also likely fail to detect when a bulb really does fail (because the load from the trailer will mask it). The bypass relay has a sensor wire for each of the output wires that go to the trailer socket. the sensor wires are attached to the relevant light cables, and the relay detects the light be activated without adding extra load to it and interfering with the ECU. It then switched on the power to the corresponding output wire, driving the trailer light independently but at the same time. All universal bypass relays work this way so you can probably substitute the model I have linked above with another. Bear in mind the current MoT test requires that an audible buzzer sounds with the indicators to show that all is working. This relay model includes that buzzer.
I note the YouTube video linked - I did watch that video and I did help me find a good cable entry point. I did my wiring slightly differently so that I didn't have to remove the right-hand boot trim or run a cable to the battery, so hopefully that will save you some time over doing it the way it's done in that video.
Let's get started. Text refers to the photo underneath it.
1. Pry up the black plastic boot sill trim panel
2. Underneath the trim panel are a number of black trim clips. Unscrew the centre part to release the pressure, and you should then be able to lever up the clips. Most of these will not unscrew properly and you will have to rip them out with force.
3. Remove both light clusters. There are two visible screws on side nearest the centre of the veicle, then put your fingers in the gap and pull hard towards you to pop it out.
4. Disconnect the multi-plug by pushing down on the tab under my thumb in the photo and then pulling apart.
5. You can now see two screws through two tabs at the top of the bumper, on on each side. Take them out.
6. Now take off the mudflaps. First the screw at the bottom
Then the screw in the wheel arch (you can probably get to this without talking the wheel off)
Then lever out the retaining clip inside the wheel arch
6a. While you're in here, there are two T30 Torx screws hidden behind the wheel lining that secure the bumper, just above and below the retaining nit for the mudflap. Remove them. If you've left the road wheels on, you'll likely need this T30 attached to a right-angle like a rachet, but they aren't done up tight so if you can get a short screwdriver in there you'll be OK. Here's a couple of photos:
7. Now there are four screws at the bottom which screw the bottom of the bumper to the support bracket behind it.
8. The bumper is now free apart from the tabs on the sides above the wheel arch. These are quite hard to separate. Lever with a screw driver and pull hard. Once it is free, disconnect the multiplug that runs to the parking sensors. It's on the right-hand side, and is the same as the one for the light clusters its in operation.
9. The bumper should now be off. You can now remove the two support brackets that the bottom of the bumper was screwed to. They'll be in the way while you're maneouvring the bar in.
10. Finally we can start adding things. Remove the two lower nuts on the metal support brackets, and fit the left hand end of the towbar with the bolts supplied. There is a captive nut somewhere up in the chassis so the vertical bolts can just be screwed in.
11. Likewise there's an oddly shaped bit to go on the right-hand side under the towing eye. You have to remove an existing vertical bolt here, and it will probably be impossible with a standard length ratchet. You need more leverage. I used it as an excuse to buy a 24" breaker bar. Mmmmm. Man wrench! I left all these bolts loose until after the centre section was in place, as there was some jiggling to be done.
12. Now to maneouvre the centre section of the bar into place. The alignment of the holes in the centre section, the end sections and the chassis was very good on this tow bar, but the fit widthways was very tight. I used a lump hammer to tap the bar slowly at each end up towards the right position. In the end I went too high, and then there's no way to hit it back down, so take this part slowly and tap gently. You will probably need an assistant. In the end I was only 1mm out so I went through the holes with a 10.5mm drill so that I could get the M10 bolts through.
13. The hard part is done. Next I bolted on the included socket and used a couple of cable ties to route the cable along the bar to the near side of the vehicle.
14. Inside we go. Remove the boot floor, pull the rubber boot seal away from the bottom and left-hand side, then use your fingers or a screwdriver to remove the boot sill trim panel, pulling directly up hard.
15. We're now working entirely on the near side. The off side of the vehicle interior does not nneed to be touched. Remove the luggage anchor point by twisting either direction through 90 degrees
16. Just rear of the seatbelt anchor and behind the light cluster are two luggage anchor points. Remove them with your T40 bit. Be careful here - as you remove the bolts it's easy to drop them as the whole assembly gets quite sloppy. This picture is old and shows me doing it on the off side, but you should remove the ones on the near side. Once you have removed these, you can
Click image to enlarge
17. Put your fingers in behind the near side wall trim panel and pull it out. Start at the rear and pull that out first, then work forward. This panel is only clipped in with push clips. It gets a bit stiff as you work towards the seat belt, but keep pulling and it will come off.
18. The bypass relay requires a permanent live supply. In the YT video linked below the poster goes to the effort of running a dedicated cable from the battery all the way to the rear, but there's no need for this. Land Rover have done it for you. Open the fuse box, and locate FA9. There will be no fuse present. Take the 15A fuse that came with the relay, and put it in FA9. I've highlighted it in the image below.
19. Stuck down to the floor on the left-hand side is the multiplug that the LR trailer electrics fit into. Using your multimeter you can now verify that there is 12v on the thick red wire that I have highlighted in this picture. I crimped a female spade connector on to the end of the permanent live connection of the relay, and stuck it on the pin inside the multiplug that corresponds to this thick red cable. Job done. Take the fuse out while you finish off.
20. Push the end of the trailer socket wire up through the grommet next to the multiplug and strip back 3 or 4 inches of outer covering. Strip each of these wires and put them in the screw terminal outputs of the bypass relay.
21. Earth the relay using one of the crimp ring connectors that comes with the kit, and screw on to an existing earth post behind the light cluster. Also earth the trailer socket similarly. Both wires are white.
22. Now you should have seven wires left to connect. These are the sensor wires that the relay uses to detect that the lights have been activated. These need to be spliced in to the wiring loom. Five wires go to near side, and two to the off side. The wires that run to the near side lamp cluster run through a grommet out. Pull on this grommet to drag the whole thing inside the car. This will give you the room you need to work. Strip back the loom tape around the short section immediately before the grommet so you can get at the wires. Splice into the loom according to the table below.
WARNING: Some of the blue scotchlock connectors provided with this kit are too big for the size of the wires on the relay, and do not make reliable connections. Either switch to red scotchlock connectors, or do it properly and solder them on.
Near side:
NS indicator: Yellow -> Orange/Grey
Fog: Blue -> Brown/Green
NS brake: Red -> Grey/Brown
NS tail: Black -> Green/Purple
Reverse: Grey -> Green/White
23. With all those connected, we now need to connect the two off side wires. Fortunately the wires for the off side light cluster run across the back of the wheel well and up the near side, so we don't need to take the trim apart on the off side. Open it up wherever you like (that the remaining wires will reach do, and splice into these wires:
Off side:
OS Indicator: Green -> Green/Orange
OS tail: Brown -> THICK Orange/White NOT the thin Orange/White
Here's where the loom is:
24. Test time. Insert the fuse, temporarily reconnect the light clusters, connect your trailer and give it a go. With the trailer connected, you should hear the relay clicking in and out as the lights on the car are turned on, and it should buzz when the indicators are activated.
Troubleshooting:
1 - Is the relay outputting 12v on the relevant screw terminal? If it is then the relay and wiring are OK, and the fault is in the socket or your trailer.
2 - Is the relay receiving a signal on the sensor wire? Using a stanley knife make a tiny cut into the insulation of the sensor wire and probe it with your multimeter to see if there is voltage there. This is how I found the bad scotchlock connections - there was voltage on the loom wire that I spliced into, but not on the sensor wire that had been spliced in.
3 - Is there voltage on the wire you have spliced into? If not you might have the wrong one. You should be able to see at least 11v with the light on.
25. Tidy up and put it all back together. The only thing different about re-assembly is that you'll need to make a small cut in the bottom of the bumper to let the tow bar through.
Good luck!
Last edited by realflash on 30th Oct 2015 4:04 pm. Edited 5 times in total
20th Oct 2015 5:05 pm
iain cooper
Member Since: 27 Aug 2007
Location: north of Glasgow
Posts: 1989
great pictures, much appreciated.
Iain
20th Oct 2015 5:46 pm
westville
Member Since: 12 Jun 2015
Location: Dunston
Posts: 1096
C'mon tea break over - I'm fitting a towbar soon so want to see the rest No Longer the owner of a 2013MY Fuji White GS
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20th Oct 2015 8:03 pm
Lightwater
Member Since: 21 Aug 2014
Location: Sydney Northern Beaches
Posts: 4905
Not that I'm fitting a tow bar but it is still appreciated to see the process.
P.S. I think one needs something stronger than tea after this!Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!
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21st Oct 2015 1:29 am
LR NUT
Member Since: 12 May 2012
Location: Scotland
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21st Oct 2015 3:56 am
Stuartc
Member Since: 01 Dec 2014
Location: Perth, Australia
Posts: 2292
Great Realflash
I look forward to your pics as I'm about to fit mine, thxs MY15
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21st Oct 2015 4:54 am
turboextreme
Member Since: 03 Nov 2012
Location: devon
Posts: 362
You're Gonna splice and fit a bypass relay
When I purchased my Free lander 2 the tow bar electrics were wired in the same way as you had done and I had lots of electrical issues caused by the bypass relay itself. I had Stalling issues due to tripping and resetting electrics also a total failure in the rear parking sensors.
I went to Matford Land rover dealer 3 times to check the issues which they could not find the cause. Then one day I happened to bump into a mate who works for Tamar trailers who explained that soldering or splicing any add on electrics is a complete no! on a Canbus electrical system as it upsets the pulses from the various systems. They removed the soldered wiring and installed a dedicated plug in kit which not only got the parking sensors working it also disables the rears when the trailer is hitched.
The bypass Relays work until they start building up corrosion on the circuit board then you will get problems like I had.
21st Oct 2015 7:46 am
westville
Member Since: 12 Jun 2015
Location: Dunston
Posts: 1096
Those pics are great - videos are good but you can really study a pic and satisfy yourself you understand the various bits and stages - keep em coming. Turboextreme - thanks for the input on wiring etc - I am opting for a dedicated wiring kit - I guessed it was expensive for a reason - hopefully won't get the same issues - the bar is by Witter who have been around long enough to know what's needed. Between the two I hope to get a good trouble free solution.
So realflash - your efforts and time with the posts are REALLY appreciated here No Longer the owner of a 2013MY Fuji White GS
"Fiat Lux" a philosophy not a car
21st Oct 2015 9:03 am
ReggiePerrin
Member Since: 13 Mar 2013
Location: Derbyshire
Posts: 1261
The dedicated plug and play kit for MY13> is relatively cheap compared to pre MY13 plug and only part play. Mine was, from memory, about £105 inc vat from my local LR dealer and diy fitting was really simple. No dealer coding is required.
Using the Land Rover supplied instructions only, my tow bar and electrics took me around two hours (electrics, probably ten to fifteen minutes of that) including bumper off and back on. I didn't take any photos though - that would add quite a bit of time I guess to the process.
21st Oct 2015 10:17 pm
realflash
Member Since: 02 Feb 2012
Location: Woking
Posts: 4
OK, I have finished fiddling with it.
You are right that interfering with the CANBUS signal wires would be a very bad idea - any electrical noise introduced by anything you added would cause mayhem. However, these wires are not CANBUS wires. They are power outputs driving a simple filament lamp. There is no ECU in the light cluster for any CANBUS device to talk to. The only complexity is that the power being drawn through these wires is measured, and we need to connect in a way that avoids upsetting that measurement process, which is what the bypass relay does.
A badly designed relay or faulty relay could transmit electrical noise back through the power output into the ECU.
22nd Oct 2015 10:51 am
Stuartc
Member Since: 01 Dec 2014
Location: Perth, Australia
Posts: 2292
Thanks for posting the pics Realflash, they're very helpful as I need to fit my tow hitch.
Something that has caught my attention, your saying that you don't need to remove the two screws behind the inner wheel arch to remove the bumper? I can see in your pic that you indeed did not remove these. What are these two bolts holding on then? Would the bumper come away easier if you did remove these bolts?MY15
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22nd Oct 2015 11:42 am
Walenut
Member Since: 17 Jun 2012
Location: Midlands
Posts: 116
Just fitted a Witter detachable, this can be done without removing the bumper, small hole drilled under the left hand reflector which you can just see in the photo, no electrics fitted as its only for a very old small trailer, did notice that when the ball was connected it didn't interfere with the reversing sensors so plus on all fronts.
Click image to enlarge
Admin note: this post has had its images recovered from a money grabbing photo hosting site and reinstated
23rd Oct 2015 9:07 am
turboextreme
Member Since: 03 Nov 2012
Location: devon
Posts: 362
Are you wiring up your tow bar according to the latest mot requirements as wiring in this way won't illuminate the towing light indicator light on the dash board. To make it legal a audible buzzer must be used.
When my towing electrics was sorted I paid £58.00 inch vat for a aftermarket plug and play tow bar wiring kit inch free programming by the tow bar centre.
23rd Oct 2015 7:57 pm
westville
Member Since: 12 Jun 2015
Location: Dunston
Posts: 1096
Good point turboextreme I hadn't thought of that aspectNo Longer the owner of a 2013MY Fuji White GS
"Fiat Lux" a philosophy not a car
23rd Oct 2015 8:32 pm
realflash
Member Since: 02 Feb 2012
Location: Woking
Posts: 4
Small update: it turns that I didn't need to remove the two screws behind the wheel arch liner because that part of the bumper had snapped off when wifey used the car to write someone else off. So you should remove these bolts, and I have updated with photos accordingly.
The relay I used includes an audible buzzer, so we're OK on that front. Since this post I have used the tow bar in anger, and all went well.
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20th Oct 2015 5:05 pm
