I went to dodge's website this afternoon and punched in my vin on the recall lookup. surprisingly it came back as having 2 open recalls. I'm at least the 3rd owner, my dad being before me and all he mainly did was pull his 16ft center console. So I have no idea if the recall notices were received at some time in the years gone by or not. Anyway, one was for something to do with emissions and the other was about the factory hitch possibly cracking at the frame. Well, I crawled underneath with a flashlight to check for cracks. Don't find any cracks but do find that sometime in the past a previous owner possibly removed the 7way from the hitch(wasn't one there when my dad bought the truck with 60k miles on it). At the very least they cut the factory plug off the wiring coming from the brake controller plug in the cab and made a bird's nest of the wiring when they "installed" a 4way. just to give an idea of the job they did, the wire for the taillights is hooked to the tag light and barely at that with a single wrap of tape. Surprisingly it has been working like that and hasn't shorted out, yet. I'm thinking about going to a local you-pull-it and cutting one out and splicing it back under my truck and then getting one of the double 7&4way combos that plugs into the factory harness. It amazes me that some people could be so cheap that they would halfass something electrical just to save $10 or so on a plug and play "T" harness kit.

 

If you can find a donor truck in the yard, might consider just grabbing the entire rear harness, and replace the whole thing......

 

+1 - I found a whole complete rear trailer wiring harness and a better looking trailer hitch at my local pick and pay salvage yard - just disconnected the harness at the rear plug connector and I felt like Christmas came early!

 

I found what was missing at the junk yard today. paid $5 for the harness and 7way. I plan on ordering a 7+4 that's plug and plug so i won't have to use a 7 to 4 adapter.

This is the plug that was removed by a previous owner.

plug and factory 7way plug.

 

Glad Christmas came early for you, too!

 

I found an OEM trailer plug harness on Fleebay for around $65.xx IIRC. Just for future reference.