Towing with your Explorer is no problem. I have a 2000 XLT and have towed many times from my bumper.

The wiring depends on whether the harness was a factory installed option or not. Mine was not. I went to Schucks and picked up a complete harnes set with interchangable flat plug or round plug connectors. This set-up connects via your taillights. You remove the tailight assembly and plug this unit into the tailights and the light wires per color and mount the black box in the tailight opening and put it all back together. When complete, you have a clean install with no wiring exposed and can easily switch connector styles. It is all pretty straight foward.

If you need to go this way, shoot me an email and I can help you out if needed.

Scott