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[MarkG]

I am fitting a tow bar to my facelift CD saloon. It's a secondhand unit from Tow-Trust so I don't have any instructions.
1. Can it be fitted without removing the bumper?
2. Does the bumper need cutting at all?
3. Is all the drilling supposed to be done from inside the boot space?
4. I found this connector behind the plastic panel in the boot. Am I supposed to connect to this? If so, where do you get the matching male connector? At the moment I just have bare wires from my tow bar electrical unit; yellow, blue, white, green, brown, red, black. Needless to say the same colours are not used on the wires going into the car's connector plug


Has anyone got any pics of their unit fitted please?

Thanks for your help

Mark

[robson]

Not sure on this tow bar but normally no cutting on bumper required dont have to remove bumper there are dimples in the boot floor remove underseal and drill through.The electrics on mine were wired into the wiring not the connector the fitter did tell me why but I cant remember. He also fitted a relay box for I believe the indicator repeater. Be careful if  the tow bar is old it might not meet regulations now required Police do check this.

[Andy B]

I am fitting a tow bar to my facelift CD saloon. It's a secondhand unit from Tow-Trust so I don't have any instructions.
1. Can it be fitted without removing the bumper?
2. Does the bumper need cutting at all?
3. Is all the drilling supposed to be done from inside the boot space?
4. I found this connector behind the plastic panel in the boot. Am I supposed to connect to this? If so, where do you get the matching male connector? At the moment I just have bare wires from my tow bar electrical unit; yellow, blue, white, green, brown, red, black. Needless to say the same colours are not used on the wires going into the car's connector plug


Has anyone got any pics of their unit fitted please?

Thanks for your help

Mark

I removed a towbar & refitted another towbar without removing the rear bumper. My prefacelift car has a preformed section at the very bottom of the bumper that just required 2 small cuts which allowed a bit to be folded up out of the way. As regard a male plug for your car, Im sure GM would be able to supply a dedicated loom to just plug in, Towsure mentions them but doesn't seem have one for the Omega. 
The colours for your 12N socket are :-

car ................... function ........12N
black/blue ......... rear fog ........ blue
black/white ....... left turn ....... yellow
black/green ....... right turn ..... green
grey/black ......... left tail ......... black
grey/red ............ right tail ....... brown
black/yellow ....... brake lights . red
brown ................ Earth ........... white

NB if you use the yellow/black from this socket, you'll need to either fit a 'trailer check control' relay part number is (was about 5 yrs ago) 90463123, behind your glove box or bridge its contacts.

The large red wire in this socket is intended to be used to supply your caravan's fridge & charging circuits via a split charge relay - best using a voltage sensitive relay, less wiring & far easier to fit. 

12S reverse lights feed (on my prefacelift) is the white/black single wire next to this large socket.
HTH

[MarkG]

I'm not going to be towing any caravans. Just a trailer every now and then. If I simply scotchlock all 7 of the 12N wires into into the right wire of the car, will that work? I don't really want to be bothering with an extra relay behind the glovebox unless absolutely necessary.

And finally, where does the 12N cable come through the boot floor? Is something already pre-drilled (if so, where is it), or do I need to drill it myself?

Thanks

Mark

[Andy B]

..... If I simply scotchlock all 7 of the 12N wires into into the right wire of the car, will that work?  ......

NB if you use the yellow/black from this socket, you'll need to either fit a 'trailer check control' relay part number is (was about 5 yrs ago) 90463123, behind your glove box or bridge its contacts.

No! :-? The brake light wiring in the socket is via the relay up front!
And Scotchlocks are sh1te     

[MarkG]

This is job is not going well. The towbar won't fit. The brackets which hang down just behind the bumper are not long enough so the the bar is fowling the bumper. Even If I were to cut a slot in the bumper, the ball would be in the middle of the number plate so that's not good   Are there different towbars for pre facelift and facelift cars? My towbar was from a pre-facelift car.

[Andy B]

....   Are there different towbars for pre facelift and facelift cars? My towbar was from a pre-facelift car.

Yes. But, new towbars are generally described as for fitting an Omega .... no mention of age, so it would fit a later car correctly and leave a large gap between the bumper & ball on early cars.

[markfree]

This is job is not going well. The towbar won't fit. The brackets which hang down just behind the bumper are not long enough so the the bar is fowling the bumper. Even If I were to cut a slot in the bumper, the ball would be in the middle of the number plate so that's not good   Are there different towbars for pre facelift and facelift cars? My towbar was from a pre-facelift car.

I had same problem fitting a pre-facelift towbar to my facelift saloon - I just cut the bumper to size then moved the reg plate up - the towbar doesn't foul the reg plate as it's passed 2 mot's now.

[MarkG]

Job done. Let me makes a few comments to help anyone else;

1. Pre-facelift and facelift bars are different. The facelift has slightly longer hanging brackets from behind the bumper and the longitudinal bar itself is cranked in 2 places for the facelift and only 1 place on the pre-facelift.
2. The angle bracket which sits in the boot between the floor and the rear panel should also have a flat spacer plate between the angle bracket and the rear panel to fill in a gap which would otherwise be there. I also had to use a dremmel to square off a couple of welds so the angle bracket could fit tight into the corner angle
3. I could not find an obvious place to bring the 12n socket wire into the boot. I ended up drilling through one of two rubber grommets in the floor towards the rear panel and drilling a hole in a flap door in the middle of the plastic trim so I could thread the cable  to the car's plug (see below). I then used duct tal to keep it all flat
4. Wiring is best done by snipping the wires you need from the plug which sits behind the plastic trim inside the boot. I used ordinary electrical screw down connectors. There are in fact 2 wires which are black and white. The one you need is the one which is more black than white. If in doubt, compare it to the wire going into the left indicator.
5. In order to get the brake lights to work you need to jumper an empty relay slot. Remove the glovebox and side air vent panel so you can see a set of 3 relays and an empty slot. Top left is a tall red relay. Top right is a grey relay and bottom left is a white relay. The empty slot bottom right needs jumpering between spade slots 2 and 6 (both have the same black/yellow wires  used at the boot connector going in to the back)

Mark

[Andy B]

.....
There are in fact 2 wires which are black and white. The one you need is the one which is more black than white. If in doubt, compare it to the wire going into the left indicator.
5. In order to get the brake lights to work you need to jumper an empty relay slot. Remove the glovebox and side air vent panel so you can see a set of 3 relays and an empty slot. Top left is a tall red relay. Top right is a grey relay and bottom left is a white relay. The empty slot bottom right needs jumpering between spade slots 2 and 6 (both have the same black/yellow wires  used at the boot connector going in to the back)

Mark

Which is what I said       
NB if the car in question was a prefacelift, then the realy base would be above the driver's feet. 
You could of course buy the trailer check control relay rather than bridge the relay base & you'd get a brake light check of your trailer/caravan barke lights.      It was about £16 when I bought mine.