Draw-Tite Hitch Install - W/ Pics

[ToddEichel]

All righty. So let me start by saying the estimate of "40 minutes" is probably only true for a shop or someone with a lift and an impact wrench. Probably took me on the order of 2-3 hours, although if I did it again, I could probably cut that in half.

Tools I used:

3/8" socket wrench
3" extension
6" extension
12mm, 14mm, and 3/4 inch sockets
torque wrench
jack
various screw drivers, pry bars, and mallets as "force multipliers"

[ZBoy]

Pics? I am planning on putting my own in soon.

I do have an impact wrench, and I was going to use ramps, but have no nice lift...

if only...

[ToddEichel]

Step One - removal of "tie down bracket"

This is the metal thing with the hole in it that hangs down just inboard of the driver side tail pipe tip and is held on with 4 14mm bolts, two parallel to the ground and two perpendicular. These were torqued on there pretty tight, around 40 lb ft or so, so make sure you've got something to really crank on them with to get them off. Here's a pic from underneath looking up and slightly towards the front (you can see 3 of the 4 bolts to be removed):

[ToddEichel]

Here's another view of the bracket. Note the two bolts holding it in and the one hole below it, those are where the three bolts for the hitch will mount on the driver side.

[ToddEichel]

Once the bracket is off (you won't need it or the bolts it used), move on to Step 2 - Lowering the Exhaust

On the passenger side, there is a bracket just behind the exhaust tip screwed into the side of the frame rail using 4 12mm bolts. I got those off pretty easily using a 3 inch extension. You can see one bolt just above the bend in the exhaust hanger rod. There's a bolt just below that, and two on the far side of the bracket:

[ToddEichel]

Now you need to remove a bracket on the cross member just behind the rear differential, two bolts, both 12mm again. No problem.

[ToddEichel]

The last step to lowering the exhaust is removing the two rubber supports on the driver side of the muffler. When I did this, the Mo wasn't jacked up at all, so when I got it removed, I was able to just rest the exhaust on the ground. If you're jacking up the rear end to mount this, I'd suggest using jack stands or something to support the exhaust. I used a jack to support it while I was working on it:

[ToddEichel]

As for the rubber exhaust hangers, basically it's a matter of forcing them off the hangers which have a flange at the end. Find something to use as a fulcrum and use a pry bar or something to push them off the mounts. The inside of the flange is slightly tapered away from the mount, so with enough force, it'll come off, don't worry about it getting stuck.

[ToddEichel]

And.... success.

[ToddEichel]

Closeup of the hanger brackets:

[ToddEichel]

At this point, you're ready to start bolting on the hitch itself. It comes with 6 bolts that might be 19mm, but 3/4 inch worked fine for me. Per the instructions, they're supposed to be torqued down to 68 lb ft. I've got kind of a cheap torque wrench so I'm not sure I exactly trust it at the extreme ends (it only goes up to 75 lb ft), plus I'm not going to be towing anything, this is just for a bike rack, so I went to about 55-60 lb ft and called it good.

It'd be useful to have a helper to support one side while you get at least one bolt in on the other, if you don't have one handy, a jack stand should do fine, just bear in mind the metal on metal gets a bit slippery and you're supporting this 35 lb hunk of metal directly over your muffler and exhaust pipes. Having it fall off the jack stand would be what is technically known as a "bad thing."

Driver's side mounted (note the cutouts for the rubber hanger brackets):

[ToddEichel]

Passenger side mounted (note the exhuast hanger bracket in the lower right)

[ToddEichel]

Reattatch the exhaust in the reverse order of removal and you're done. Yay, wasn't that easy? Here's the driver side with everything in place:

[ToddEichel]

and passenger side:

[ToddEichel]

And ready to go....