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This location gives us a nice clear spot to drop the trailer plug down behind the bumper. By zip-tying it to the gusset of the hitch, we can keep it away from the hot exhaust.
We used a test light to figure out which wire ran the brake light and which ran the taillight in the Isuzu harness. We had to do this because Isuzu uses a dual element bulb to run both lights.
All of the splicing is done with these crimp and cut connectors (I don’t know what the real name for them is). They’re not ideal, but they do the job. We will likely replace them with a true crimp connector or a solder joint at a later date. Instead of drilling into the body for the ground wire, we simply cut off the ring terminal and spliced this into one of the other bulb grounds. 
One wire needs to run along the back of the truck to reach the passenger side turn signal. We were able to carefully pry back the top edge of the bumper cover and slip it in there for a clean installation.
There is plenty of room to tuck the wires into place behind the mounting bracket for the light housing. You can better see where we mounted the lighting controller. Before we buttoned everything up, we made sure the new plug worked correctly with our test light. Fortunately, it did.Our first test of the new hitch came not with my 240SX seen on Page 1, but with my first car. Alright JDM fanbois, any idea what this is?
This car has been in storage for the last 8 years, first on a farm, then in a borrowed garage. However, it was being evicted from its current home, so it is taking the space of my S13 in DE and had to be moved. This car is nearly the same weight as an S13, so was a good test case to see how the Isuzu pulled. We drove it around town and down the highway and had no troubles, which was very encouraging. Since we are maxing out the towing capacity of the VX, we wanted to be dead sure that there would be no trailer sway or braking problems. Fortunately, the VX passed with flying colors.
4 comments
Have you installed auxiliary transmission cooler? I’m going to install trailer hitch in my VX to tow my small boat (2000lbs with trailer). I’m not sure if the factory coller will be enough.
We used the factory trans cooler. If you’re towing over steep grades or in high heat then it would be a good idea to do so. It’s not difficult if you want to, there’s a nice spot opposite the A/C fan behind the grille. You can fit a 17″ wide cooler in there with some basic brackets and splicing into the soft lines that go from the trans to the OEM cooler is easy in that area. Should take a couple hours to install.
The transmission really isn’t the weak point. This exact same drivetrain is rated to 5,000 lbs in the Trooper. The Trooper’s longer wheelbase gives it a higher towing capacity. That being said there are a LOT of horror stories online about the 4L30E and its reliability, so it would be a wise investment to put together and install a trans cooler kit if you’re going to do a lot of towing.
Can you state what the model number is of the Curt hitch you used? Thanks!
It’s Curt 13556. It’s the only hitch Curt makes for the VehiCross.