- First Name
- Bootenwagen
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2023
- Threads
- 1
- Messages
- 5
- Reaction score
- 18
- Location
- Sevier, UT
- Vehicle(s)
- 2022 Ford Bronco 2 Door
- Your Bronco Model
- Outer Banks
- Thread starter
- #1
Intro
Greetings all, I'd like to share with you a guide I made for making the 6G Ford Bronco flat towable.
Starting with an overview, it is a four part YouTube series that provides full details on how to install the Blue Ox adapter plate, diode wiring kit, and Blue Ox braking system. I will also provide a text form step-by-step here in this forum, copy and pasted liberally from my videos.
A bit of background - I've been travelling full-time in an RV with the Bronco in tow from the east to the west coast for the last 5 months now, or about 3000 miles. There were some kinks that had to be ironed out, and there were plenty of things I wish I knew beforehand which would probably have made this a lot easier.
List of Parts*:
Blue Ox BX7380 Alpha II Tow Bar
https://amzn.to/46AXeb3
Blue Ox BX2687 Baseplate for Ford Bronco (Standard Bumper)
https://amzn.to/3D4kHnk
Blue Ox BX8848 4 Diodes Taillight Wiring Kit:
https://amzn.to/3O3SlQE
Blue Ox BRK2019 Patriot 3 Brake System:
https://amzn.to/3O0rlkW
Blue Ox BX88206 Coiled Cable with Female Receptor:
https://amzn.to/43kPxCN
*Not an exhaustive list as I also bought a bunch of spade connectors, fuses, wires, nuts, bolts, and fuse holders from local car parts stores. For full transparency, these are Amazon affiliate links that I receive commission for.
Adapter Plate:
1) Remove the skid plate, 6 bolts, 15mm
2) Remove tow loops - start with the shrouds, then 2x 15mm bolts. Don't let these fall on you.
3) Ream these two holes out to 1/2"
4) Install baseplate using the tow loops' 15 mm bolts & holes. Use red Loctite. Blue Ox rep said "we have no 15mm spec, do between 120-180 ft/lbs". I shot for 120 lbs.
5) Install the mounting brackets using the hardware they provided. This will take the 1/2” diameter and 1 1/2” long bolt. The lockwasher goes right on the bolt, the other side comes out on the inside of the baseplate, and gets secured with a washer and nylon locknut. The instructions say to keep it loose for now.
And here's the part that got extremely tricky and frustrating for me. At this time, the instructions say to use the whiz nuts to properly place the nuts above the holes that were reamed out. What happened in actuality though is that the mounting bracket holes didn't line up with the existing holes that I reamed out on the Bronco. The tolerance mismatch was actually pretty bad, off by what seemed like a 1/4”. I also asked Blue Ox about this issue, and they didn't really have much to say, their first assumption was that I ordered the wrong part. I will say that the instructions say this:
“The dimensional variations between otherwise identical vehicles can be considerable. While the baseplate was designed for easy installation, it may be necessary to tailor the baseplate slightly to compensate for vehicle manufacturer’s tolerances.”
In my case that may have been a bit of an understatement, because I wound up having to ream both the mounting bracket AND the Bronco just to make it align. It was not easy, and I didn't really feel good about all this mangling, and I'm sure it voided the warranty. My opinion is that if they are aware of the broad tolerances, then they should have made the holes on the mounting bracket oblong to be more accommodating of this fact.
I wound up cutting the rods off of the whiz nuts because they were a bigger hindrance to me than a help. I aligned the nuts using the rods and my hands and just eyeballing exactly where the nut was in relation to the mounting hole. These were 1/2” grade 8 bolts, so I torqued them to 119 foot lbs in accordance with the table.
6) Wrap then secure the provided safety cables around the front cross member in such a way as to avoid any rubbing of lines, hoses, and moving parts. Easier said than done.
7) Trim your skid plate to accommodate the adapter plates. Then curl up in a ball and cry because Blue Ox is making you mangle an $800 part
This is what it'll look like now, ignore the breakaway switch:
Taillight Diode Wiring Kit, 6 pin connector, and battery trickle charger
For this, I've drawn up a schematic. There are things of note here that I had to learn the hard way. The first time I towed the Bronco, it nearly killed the battery - both because there is no provided way to charge the battery, but also probably because I forgot to turn the accessory button off. Regardless, I think battery discharge is a real risk. Some on these forums have even mentioned that it may be possible for the transfer case to jump out of neutral and grenade itself if the battery power gets too low. Either way, it's important to give the Bronco an umbilical cord for charging. I accomplished this by tapping the 'A' pin on the 6 pin connector, and wiring it directly to the battery through a 10 amp fuse.
Also of note -- the diodes in the back don't really seem to fit into the tail light housing. I extended the wire lengths so I could tuck them into a crevice behind the tail light.
1) Disconnect the battery
2) Starting with the driver's side. To remove the tail lights, unscrew the 4 plastic push pins. Pop them off with a trim pry bar
3) Pry off the trim pieces beneath the tail light. Be gentle and patient here - it's held on with fairly strong clips. I found it best to undo a few clips of the wheel well, then I pried the trim piece at the wheel well until loose, and finally I pried on the right hand side of the trim piece
4) Remove the three 10mm bolts, then remove the plastic shroud
5) Remove two 8mm bolts, and one 10mm bolt
6) Tail lights should now be loose, dangling by the wiring loom
7) Assuming all Broncos are the same, cut the blue and gray wires between the black and grey connectors. Add about 12" of wire to each, so that the diodes can be tucked far away.
8) Collect about 6 feet of green and brown wire from the diode wiring kit, and route that between the passenger and driver's side tail lights. I routed mine along side the rear cross member and tow hitch, liberally using zip ties (see schematic)
9) Route the 4 wire cable through the driver's side tail light opening, and wire per the schematic. I used the 10mm bolt on the side as a grounding bolt. I don't like drilling extra holes into my Bronco.
10) I routed the other end of the 4 wire cable along side the brake lines, reusing the brake line clips where possible, and using zip ties everywhere else. It then goes up around the front wheel well into the engine bay, and along the front cross member near radiator fans. It's final destination is the passenger side tow adapter plate.
11) Wire the 4 conductor cable to the 6 pin connector per schematic. Simultaneously, using 16awg black and red wire, wire the red to pin A, and the black to the GD ground pin. Slightly janky, but yes, I have now both the white and black wire going into one pin for ground. The red and the black are what is going to be trickle charging the Bronco's battery.
14) To mount the 6 pin connector, I used long bolts and Home Depot lighting nipples to create a makeshift standoff. I mounted it to the adapter plate with some drilled holes. This might affect the structural integrity, so it may not be the best option, but it's the one I chose to keep Bronco appearance changes minimal.
13) Route the black and the red to the battery, use the same path as the 4 conductor cable. Wire a 10A fuse and holder to the red wire, a ring terminal to both the red and black, and connect them to the battery. The battery has very handy extra studs just for this sort of thing. Reconnect the battery.
14) At this point, everything should work, so it's a good time to back your RV/tow car to the Bronco and test all the lights via 7 to 6 pin cable. If everything checks out, button the lights back up.
Diode wiring, battery trickle charger, and 6 pin connector:
Patriot 3 Braking System Wiring + Neutral Tow mode:
The Patriot 3 comes with a cigarette style plug. Won't work with the Bronco - because the Bronco shuts off accessory power after 45 minutes. I'm pretty sure everything is off altogether as soon as you press the start button. You can either wire an always-on cigarette style outlet and put it somewhere in the footwell, but that is peak janky. I opted to wire a flat pin style connector to the Patriot, and I have the same in the footwell going directly to the battery via grommet and via 10A fuse.
1) I attached the "grenade pin" disconnect switch to the driver's side adapter plate via 1/2" 3/4" length machine bolt, locknut, and blue Loctite. The remainder I secured with a ziptie.
2) I routed the breakaway switch cable and power cable through a rubber grommet in the driver's side footwell
3) The power cable I connected to the power studs on the battery using a ring terminal. The smooth wire I spliced a fuse holder, and placed a 10A fuse into
4) With everything wired, the Bronco should be ready to go. At this point you can hook everything up between tow vehicle and the Bronco
-Put the tow bar in (tow bar rating should be 6000 lbs+. I think my 2 door Outer Banks is around 4200-4400 lbs. 4 doors with sasquatch packages are probably north of 5000 lbs.)
-Extend the tow bar on the ground, drive the Bronco over
-Put the pins in on both sides, retain with spring loaded pin
-Attach safety cables
-Attach 7 to 6 pin cable
-Attached breakaway switch cable -- needs to be connected to something sturdy on the tow vehicle
5) Put Bronco into Neutral tow mode -- these instructions can be accessed in the center screen
-Without foot on brake pedal, press start button
-Press firmly on brake pedal, shift into neutral
-Press 3 striped button on steering wheel, navigate to settings, then neutral tow mode
-Press and hold 'OK' to initialize neutral tow mode
-Release brake pedal gently, car might roll away. Make sure emergency brake is off. Press the start button to turn everything off -- this is important. If you don't do this, it'll rack up miles on the odometer when towed.
6) Setup the Patriot 3. Make sure the levelling feet clear it of the seat adjustment lever, otherwise it can and will push the seat out of the way when actuating the brake pedal.
7) I keep the RF controller on my RVs dash, and my settings are at Force: 2 and Sensitivity: 3. This is very low on both ends, because I've had the Patriot fully clamp on the brakes even when I wasn't braking -- I was just going over some rough terrain and that was enough to fool the accelerometer (or whatever) into thinking that I was. Lowering these settings is what Blue Ox recommended to me. Not really ideal - I would prefer it if the Patriot was actuated through the 'S' brake signal, or maybe using an AND gate of 'S' signal and accelerometer, that would probably solve this issue. But since setting it to that, I haven't had any problems, though I do have to manually actuate the brakes using the RF controller more frequently. Best to just drive more defensively.
Patriot 3 braking system wiring:
Conclusion:
Parts wise this is about $2500-3500. Seems to have jumped by $1K since my build, YMMV, and your inflation may vary
.
This took me 3-4 days in labor, roughly 30 hours if I had to guess, and more to fine tune. Big learning curve, and my goal was to make it as clean as possible. The RV dealer estimated the total cost to be $5000, which is probably fair given how involved this is. I chose to do it myself both to save money, but also because I am very particular about changing the appearance of the Bronco as little as possible. I wouldn't want to inadvertently wind up with drilled out holes in my bumper for various connectors or whatever.
Here's a link to the diode schematic, and here is a link to the Patriot schematic. Feedback welcome! If anyone finds something that needs correction, let me know and I'll revise!
Greetings all, I'd like to share with you a guide I made for making the 6G Ford Bronco flat towable.
Starting with an overview, it is a four part YouTube series that provides full details on how to install the Blue Ox adapter plate, diode wiring kit, and Blue Ox braking system. I will also provide a text form step-by-step here in this forum, copy and pasted liberally from my videos.
A bit of background - I've been travelling full-time in an RV with the Bronco in tow from the east to the west coast for the last 5 months now, or about 3000 miles. There were some kinks that had to be ironed out, and there were plenty of things I wish I knew beforehand which would probably have made this a lot easier.
List of Parts*:
Blue Ox BX7380 Alpha II Tow Bar
https://amzn.to/46AXeb3
Blue Ox BX2687 Baseplate for Ford Bronco (Standard Bumper)
https://amzn.to/3D4kHnk
Blue Ox BX8848 4 Diodes Taillight Wiring Kit:
https://amzn.to/3O3SlQE
Blue Ox BRK2019 Patriot 3 Brake System:
https://amzn.to/3O0rlkW
Blue Ox BX88206 Coiled Cable with Female Receptor:
https://amzn.to/43kPxCN
*Not an exhaustive list as I also bought a bunch of spade connectors, fuses, wires, nuts, bolts, and fuse holders from local car parts stores. For full transparency, these are Amazon affiliate links that I receive commission for.
Adapter Plate:
1) Remove the skid plate, 6 bolts, 15mm
2) Remove tow loops - start with the shrouds, then 2x 15mm bolts. Don't let these fall on you.
3) Ream these two holes out to 1/2"
4) Install baseplate using the tow loops' 15 mm bolts & holes. Use red Loctite. Blue Ox rep said "we have no 15mm spec, do between 120-180 ft/lbs". I shot for 120 lbs.
5) Install the mounting brackets using the hardware they provided. This will take the 1/2” diameter and 1 1/2” long bolt. The lockwasher goes right on the bolt, the other side comes out on the inside of the baseplate, and gets secured with a washer and nylon locknut. The instructions say to keep it loose for now.
And here's the part that got extremely tricky and frustrating for me. At this time, the instructions say to use the whiz nuts to properly place the nuts above the holes that were reamed out. What happened in actuality though is that the mounting bracket holes didn't line up with the existing holes that I reamed out on the Bronco. The tolerance mismatch was actually pretty bad, off by what seemed like a 1/4”. I also asked Blue Ox about this issue, and they didn't really have much to say, their first assumption was that I ordered the wrong part. I will say that the instructions say this:
“The dimensional variations between otherwise identical vehicles can be considerable. While the baseplate was designed for easy installation, it may be necessary to tailor the baseplate slightly to compensate for vehicle manufacturer’s tolerances.”
In my case that may have been a bit of an understatement, because I wound up having to ream both the mounting bracket AND the Bronco just to make it align. It was not easy, and I didn't really feel good about all this mangling, and I'm sure it voided the warranty. My opinion is that if they are aware of the broad tolerances, then they should have made the holes on the mounting bracket oblong to be more accommodating of this fact.
I wound up cutting the rods off of the whiz nuts because they were a bigger hindrance to me than a help. I aligned the nuts using the rods and my hands and just eyeballing exactly where the nut was in relation to the mounting hole. These were 1/2” grade 8 bolts, so I torqued them to 119 foot lbs in accordance with the table.
6) Wrap then secure the provided safety cables around the front cross member in such a way as to avoid any rubbing of lines, hoses, and moving parts. Easier said than done.
7) Trim your skid plate to accommodate the adapter plates. Then curl up in a ball and cry because Blue Ox is making you mangle an $800 part
This is what it'll look like now, ignore the breakaway switch:
Taillight Diode Wiring Kit, 6 pin connector, and battery trickle charger
For this, I've drawn up a schematic. There are things of note here that I had to learn the hard way. The first time I towed the Bronco, it nearly killed the battery - both because there is no provided way to charge the battery, but also probably because I forgot to turn the accessory button off. Regardless, I think battery discharge is a real risk. Some on these forums have even mentioned that it may be possible for the transfer case to jump out of neutral and grenade itself if the battery power gets too low. Either way, it's important to give the Bronco an umbilical cord for charging. I accomplished this by tapping the 'A' pin on the 6 pin connector, and wiring it directly to the battery through a 10 amp fuse.
Also of note -- the diodes in the back don't really seem to fit into the tail light housing. I extended the wire lengths so I could tuck them into a crevice behind the tail light.
1) Disconnect the battery
2) Starting with the driver's side. To remove the tail lights, unscrew the 4 plastic push pins. Pop them off with a trim pry bar
3) Pry off the trim pieces beneath the tail light. Be gentle and patient here - it's held on with fairly strong clips. I found it best to undo a few clips of the wheel well, then I pried the trim piece at the wheel well until loose, and finally I pried on the right hand side of the trim piece
4) Remove the three 10mm bolts, then remove the plastic shroud
5) Remove two 8mm bolts, and one 10mm bolt
6) Tail lights should now be loose, dangling by the wiring loom
7) Assuming all Broncos are the same, cut the blue and gray wires between the black and grey connectors. Add about 12" of wire to each, so that the diodes can be tucked far away.
8) Collect about 6 feet of green and brown wire from the diode wiring kit, and route that between the passenger and driver's side tail lights. I routed mine along side the rear cross member and tow hitch, liberally using zip ties (see schematic)
9) Route the 4 wire cable through the driver's side tail light opening, and wire per the schematic. I used the 10mm bolt on the side as a grounding bolt. I don't like drilling extra holes into my Bronco.
10) I routed the other end of the 4 wire cable along side the brake lines, reusing the brake line clips where possible, and using zip ties everywhere else. It then goes up around the front wheel well into the engine bay, and along the front cross member near radiator fans. It's final destination is the passenger side tow adapter plate.
11) Wire the 4 conductor cable to the 6 pin connector per schematic. Simultaneously, using 16awg black and red wire, wire the red to pin A, and the black to the GD ground pin. Slightly janky, but yes, I have now both the white and black wire going into one pin for ground. The red and the black are what is going to be trickle charging the Bronco's battery.
14) To mount the 6 pin connector, I used long bolts and Home Depot lighting nipples to create a makeshift standoff. I mounted it to the adapter plate with some drilled holes. This might affect the structural integrity, so it may not be the best option, but it's the one I chose to keep Bronco appearance changes minimal.
13) Route the black and the red to the battery, use the same path as the 4 conductor cable. Wire a 10A fuse and holder to the red wire, a ring terminal to both the red and black, and connect them to the battery. The battery has very handy extra studs just for this sort of thing. Reconnect the battery.
14) At this point, everything should work, so it's a good time to back your RV/tow car to the Bronco and test all the lights via 7 to 6 pin cable. If everything checks out, button the lights back up.
Diode wiring, battery trickle charger, and 6 pin connector:
Patriot 3 Braking System Wiring + Neutral Tow mode:
The Patriot 3 comes with a cigarette style plug. Won't work with the Bronco - because the Bronco shuts off accessory power after 45 minutes. I'm pretty sure everything is off altogether as soon as you press the start button. You can either wire an always-on cigarette style outlet and put it somewhere in the footwell, but that is peak janky. I opted to wire a flat pin style connector to the Patriot, and I have the same in the footwell going directly to the battery via grommet and via 10A fuse.
1) I attached the "grenade pin" disconnect switch to the driver's side adapter plate via 1/2" 3/4" length machine bolt, locknut, and blue Loctite. The remainder I secured with a ziptie.
2) I routed the breakaway switch cable and power cable through a rubber grommet in the driver's side footwell
3) The power cable I connected to the power studs on the battery using a ring terminal. The smooth wire I spliced a fuse holder, and placed a 10A fuse into
4) With everything wired, the Bronco should be ready to go. At this point you can hook everything up between tow vehicle and the Bronco
-Put the tow bar in (tow bar rating should be 6000 lbs+. I think my 2 door Outer Banks is around 4200-4400 lbs. 4 doors with sasquatch packages are probably north of 5000 lbs.)
-Extend the tow bar on the ground, drive the Bronco over
-Put the pins in on both sides, retain with spring loaded pin
-Attach safety cables
-Attach 7 to 6 pin cable
-Attached breakaway switch cable -- needs to be connected to something sturdy on the tow vehicle
5) Put Bronco into Neutral tow mode -- these instructions can be accessed in the center screen
-Without foot on brake pedal, press start button
-Press firmly on brake pedal, shift into neutral
-Press 3 striped button on steering wheel, navigate to settings, then neutral tow mode
-Press and hold 'OK' to initialize neutral tow mode
-Release brake pedal gently, car might roll away. Make sure emergency brake is off. Press the start button to turn everything off -- this is important. If you don't do this, it'll rack up miles on the odometer when towed.
6) Setup the Patriot 3. Make sure the levelling feet clear it of the seat adjustment lever, otherwise it can and will push the seat out of the way when actuating the brake pedal.
7) I keep the RF controller on my RVs dash, and my settings are at Force: 2 and Sensitivity: 3. This is very low on both ends, because I've had the Patriot fully clamp on the brakes even when I wasn't braking -- I was just going over some rough terrain and that was enough to fool the accelerometer (or whatever) into thinking that I was. Lowering these settings is what Blue Ox recommended to me. Not really ideal - I would prefer it if the Patriot was actuated through the 'S' brake signal, or maybe using an AND gate of 'S' signal and accelerometer, that would probably solve this issue. But since setting it to that, I haven't had any problems, though I do have to manually actuate the brakes using the RF controller more frequently. Best to just drive more defensively.
Patriot 3 braking system wiring:
Conclusion:
Parts wise this is about $2500-3500. Seems to have jumped by $1K since my build, YMMV, and your inflation may vary
.This took me 3-4 days in labor, roughly 30 hours if I had to guess, and more to fine tune. Big learning curve, and my goal was to make it as clean as possible. The RV dealer estimated the total cost to be $5000, which is probably fair given how involved this is. I chose to do it myself both to save money, but also because I am very particular about changing the appearance of the Bronco as little as possible. I wouldn't want to inadvertently wind up with drilled out holes in my bumper for various connectors or whatever.
Here's a link to the diode schematic, and here is a link to the Patriot schematic. Feedback welcome! If anyone finds something that needs correction, let me know and I'll revise!
Sponsored
Last edited:
