13 pin plug

[joeby]

after reading the December edition of practical caravan ,reader Mike Whitehead converted his car and van to 13 pin plug & socket , and i was thinking of doing the same ,but i would like to know if any one else has done the same thing ,and what pitfalls they came across

 

[WatsonJohnG]

No pitfalls

I purchased a 13 pin prewired socket from the Tool Box in Birmingham and just followed a wiring diagram using bullet connectors to connect the road lights matching colour to colour and further spade connections were made to the fridge relay etc

The hole in the mounting plate needs to be bigger than the old 12N/S and it needed a visit to a few shops to find one

 

[Sproket]

Joby

Here is a link to 13pin wiring diagram if you take a look under your a frame on your van to see if you have just one cable what has been split for your 12n & 12s plugs, if it has not been split, and you have your grey and black cables there, you have two choices, one is to strip the outer insulation of your cables already there, get a piece of heat shrink which will go over both cables, to form one cable, and then wire the 13pin plug on, the other way is to buy a new length of 13core cable & connect it back to the inside of the van with choc block connector

( mine was one cable what had been split )

You can sometimes pick up a pre wired 13pin socket on e-bay or are you just going to put both of your cables into the back ?

you have got to be careful that you don't get any stray stands of wire shorting across other terminals in the plug & socket ( there is not a lot of room )

 

[joeby]

Joby

Here is a link to 13pin wiring diagram if you take a look under your a frame on your van to see if you have just one cable what has been split for your 12n & 12s plugs, if it has not been split, and you have your grey and black cables there, you have two choices, one is to strip the outer insulation of your cables already there, get a piece of heat shrink which will go over both cables, to form one cable, and then wire the 13pin plug on, the other way is to buy a new length of 13core cable & connect it back to the inside of the van with choc block connector

( mine was one cable what had been split )

You can sometimes pick up a pre wired 13pin socket on e-bay or are you just going to put both of your cables into the back ?

you have got to be careful that you don't get any stray stands of wire shorting across other terminals in the plug & socket ( there is not a lot of room )

Thank you both for the extra info , i think i would prefer to go for a pre wired socket to simplify things ,Regards Joby

 

[JeffandDi]

Joby,

Depends on your car and how sophisticated it is and if you originally had both 12N and 12S sockets. If you had both sockets before ignore me as it's a pretty easy DIY job but if you didn't you might want to read on. I have a problem at the moment I need to sort after doing this recently. Originally I only had a 12N socket but as I was upgrading to the 13pin one I thought I would make use of the 12v supplies to the fridge etc. However my vehicles OBC detects the relay that switches on the 12v feed from the ignition and tells me that there is a drain on the electrical system which is not necessarily the case. Its too clever for its own good! It's not a great issue as I simply remove the fuse when not towing but it is a nuisance. It's something I am going to look into though I'm not sure what to do at the moment. I could just not use those "12s" wires but that would be admitting defeat!

 

[Sproket]

Joby

13 Pin Prewired Socket With 2 Metre Cable

13pin pre wired socket

13pin prewired plug 3 meter cable