Fifth Wheel Trailer Hitch Installation - 2006 Dodge Ram Pickup

This Product Fits The Following Vehicles

2006 - 2008 Dodge Ram Pickup 1500 Series 6 ft. Bed, Mega Cab Only

2003 - 2009 Dodge Ram Pickup 2500 Series 6 ft. Bed

2003 - 2009 Dodge Ram Pickup 2500 Series 8 ft. Bed

2003 - 2009 Dodge Ram Pickup 3500 Series 6 ft. Bed

2003 - 2009 Dodge Ram Pickup 3500 Series 8 ft. Bed

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Installation of a Fifth Wheel Trailer Hitch on a 2006 Dodge Ram Pickup

Today we are going to install part number 50062 from Draw-Tite - their quick, custom install kit. And we are going to install this on a 2006 Dodge 2500 pickup truck. To begin our install, go ahead and lower the spare tire so you have access to underneath the frame. And you may have to move the exhaust out of the way - tie it out of the way or lower it to give you a little bit extra room, on some of the brackets, too. After you have that accomplished, your best bet is to go ahead and start working on the rails. The first step is to go ahead and measure out our rails for our 5th wheel. We will start off on top of the bed. Per instructions, there are different measurements between 6-foot and 8-foot. And measure out your bed rails, starting from the end of the truck where the tailgate is, toward the front. We are going to show you the reference points on how to mount your rear rail here. And this starts with the rear rail. The other rail will be situated by the actual 5th wheel assembly itself. For starters, we will start from the edge of a rail to the very end of the bed right here. You want to have it even on both sides, of course, and centered from right to left, too. Aim for this bolt hole right here to be in the exact center of the bed. Once you have your measurements done, use a hole punch and go ahead and mark the bed then look in the bottom and make sure your brackets will line up with those punches first. That way, it double-checks that you have got your measurements correct and you did not drill a hole when you did not have to. Once you have checked the brackets with the dimples, then go ahead and start drilling out your holes. Start with a smaller bit, like a 1/4-inch, and work your way up to a larger size. On this board hole here, you are going to go through the bed itself and also the bed support that is underneath it, too. We will go ahead and drill out our pilot holes out to our larger size.

OK, we will install our drivers side bracket on the inside of the frame, so that means we are going to have to move our wiring off the frame, and then it is going to fit right in place here behind the shock. And then we can install our U-bolt just to hold it in place. And just loosely install our hardware that way, we can move it around as we need. And do the same thing on the passengers side. Next we install some hardware that goes to this hole right here. And what we are going to do is feed our fish wire from the inside out to the hole further back underneath the frame right here. We are going to install our block, and we are just going to push it into the frame. And then take our bolt and thread that into it, and pull the whole assembly through, back through the frame and out the hole. And then we can install our nut and washer from there on again, leaving everything loose. Next, we are going to install our spacer tube. What is going to happen here is that this part actually fits inside of this tube here and rests up against the bottom of the bed. So if you put it like to this right now it looks too big. But on the corrugation, it actually has enough room to fit up inside there. This will require an extra set of hands. And what you are going to do is just take a plain piece of wire and just go up through the hole you drilled and out the side of the bed. And then put a little hook on the end to help kind of pull it up straight. That way, you can actually pull it up at like a 45-degree angle and then use a screwdriver to help point it up in the air, and then your helper on top with his tool will help align it up, too. At that point, you can go ahead and your bolt from the top side down. Again, leave that one loose and then work to the bolt that goes underneath the bed itself right here. And what is going to happen is that this block will go alongside the bolt to fit up to take up the room that is inside the corrugation. OK, once you have got that started, then this block will go back behind the bolt. Again, we are just leaving everything loose. And then we will make sure that our bar is straight with our measurements on top. And then there is one more final hole that we have to drill out in the center of the bed.

Once you make sure that you have this bar straight in alignment as you started off and you have got the hardware just loosely in place, what we like to do is just save this center hole here to drill that out last, simply because if you have to move it left and right you have just got one less piece of resistance to worry about. Once you have it straight, we will just go ahead and finish off with the last hole. Again, we are going to have our spacer that is going to fit underneath there to fill up the corrugation, and then we will the bolt in. There you go. Then we are going to go back and install our hardware on the bottom of it. With that, we are done with the rear rail. We will be repeating all these steps with the rail going toward the front of the vehicle. We will not tighten down anything yet we will save that for last. And we are going to line that up using the bottom half of our 5th wheel hitch. What this is going to do is set up our measurements for us. What you want to do next is just take the back rail and push it toward the front so you can take up all the slack out of it. And also you want to make some adjustments where it is even left and right, also. And then, once you have that done, go ahead and take this out, and you can start marking your holes to drill out. If you are going to use a gooseneck attachment also, then what you want to do is go ahead and take this back out, put your gooseneck attachment in there, and make sure it fits in there evenly, also. Once you have that, then you know you have your rails set and you can really drill out your holes. As you can see here, we actually put a piece of wood between the bed and the frame. The gas tank is real close, right underneath of it, so it is a good idea to have that, just in case. Drop in our spacers so they will fit through the corrugations. Then we in our hardware. And again, there will be one more hole that gets drilled out in the center, but we are going to save that one for last.

We will go ahead and install our front bracket, but this bracket goes on the outside of the frame. We just want to thread that through the mount hole on top. At least get it started. We will use our U-bolt here to go ahead and hold our bracket in place, and then we can finesse the other bolt back in. Again, we are going to leave these loose because we still have to move the bracket around. And it will be the same thing for the other side, but there is going to be a brake line on that side of the frame, so you are going to have to move the brake line so you have room for the U-bolt to fit underneath of it. And it is good to have your extra set of hands to hold that bolt down in place while you thread the hardware on. All right, now we will go to the other side. All right, our wire harness we have to pull away, too, because we do not want that mashed by the U-bolt. And our U-bolt is going to fit in this space between the brake line here and the frame. We are going to install our U-bolt first and then slip our bracket on. Put your bracket in place and just slip your U-bolts in and just get them started.

Once you get your 5th wheel in the rails themselves, then you can go ahead and start tightening down the bolts. What you want to do is go ahead and tighten down the rails in the bed first on all four sides. Then we will tighten down the brackets to the frame. Once you have your bolts snugged down, then you can go ahead and give them their final torque, according to the instructions. All right, once you get the rails set the way you want them, and the 5th wheel is in place, go ahead and drill out that last hole for it. With the rails bolted to the brackets and the bed is sandwiched between the two at the blocks, then you can go ahead and start tightening down the U-bolts and the bolts that clamp the brackets to the frame. And you want to tighten down the U-bolts evenly, too. Once you get everything tightened down, go ahead and zip-tie your harness back up so it will not flop around and get damaged in any way. There is a nice hole right here next to the brake line bracket, so let us use that to tie off to. With all the bolts tightened down, do a final check to make sure everything is straight, and that will finish your install of part number 50062 from Draw-Tite - their quick, custom install kit, on a 2006 Dodge 2500 pickup truck.

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