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Gooseneck Hitch Installation - 2004 Ford F-350 Super-Duty
Custom Fit Gooseneck Hitch
Products Featured in this Video
Gooseneck Trailer Hitch Installation Rail Kit - Ford Super Duty Trucks
4430
$199.95
Manufacturer Instructions
Installation of a Gooseneck Hitch on a 2004 Ford F-350 Super-Duty
Today we are going to be installing Hide-a-Goose part number 9460 along with Hide-a-Goose Custom Installation Kit 4430 on a 2004 Ford F-350 Super-Duty. OK, the first thing you want to do is to go ahead and lower your spare tire down to give you extra room to work underneath the vehicle. Another thing that I recommend, which I am going to do right now, is to go ahead and loosen the bed bolts. There are eight of them. And to loosen those up is going to make things a lot easier when you go underneath to get the gooseneck rails into place. And, start our installation. The first thing we want to do is to go ahead and lower the exhaust down, which is - this rear hanger here, the one we are going to start with, it has one bolt on the side. The rubber holder off of the hanger or you can just remove the bolt here on the side of the frame, which is what I am going to do. We also want to go ahead and remove the forward hanger, as well, up above the curve in the exhaust. And you can see there is one rubber hanger there. And there is one on the inboard side as well. We can go ahead and remove the exhaust off of there. OK, the next thing to do is to go ahead and put the cross bracings in over the frame of the truck. And to do this we want to go ahead and put the rear one in first and then put the forward one in after that. You can see there is a little bit of difference between the front and the rear ones. The front crossmember has two extra holes here in the center, whereas the rear one does not - so that is the one we want to put in first. Before we do that, we do want to take the 5/8 by 2-inch carriage bolts and we want to go ahead and those into the square holes before we install them into position, because once they are in position, we will not be able to get the carriage bolts in there. And we are going to go put them in place.
To install the rear crossmember, we want to first take the drivers side, it over the gas tank, and then we can manipulate the passengers side up over the exhaust and slide it into position. Once we have got it in over the frame, we can just pull it back into position. We want it near the rear hat channel here. Come up and over the exhaust and then rotate it into position, just like so. Now we are going to go put our frame brackets on, directly behind the rear tire. Looking at the frame rail here, you can see where our crossmembers are. We want to go ahead and align the frame bracket now. And what we can do is just go ahead and just hang our brackets from the studs off of the crossmembers and then realign them with the holes that are directly in the frame rail. What we are going to use as our main attaching point is going to be this one right here, which you can see I have got aligned with the existing hole in the frame itself. And you can see all the other holes that are existing in the frame line up as well, to let you know that you are in the right spot. Go ahead and install the flat washer, lock washer and nut on both spots. We are just going to leave that loosely installed for the time being. We want to attach it with the 1/4 by 1-1/2 by 3-inch block as well as a lock washer and a nut. OK, and then next we want to go ahead and use the U-bolt that is provided in the installation kit. We will it from the inside of the vehicle out toward the frame bracket and through the existing holes in the frame bracket, like so. We just want to attach those, attach that with a flat washer, lock washer and nut. And again, at this time we just want to leave everything loose until we make our final adjustments, and then we can tighten everything down. With the U-bolt, you definitely want to make sure when you tighten that you tighten it evenly so that it seats properly. OK, and then we want to go ahead and do that for the other side as well. And again, for the U-bolts we are going to be using the 1/2-inch attaching hardware, as opposed to the 5/8. You will be able to tell because they will not fit, otherwise.
We are up inside the bed now, and we are going to go ahead and mark and then drill out our hole for the gooseneck itself. On long-bed models, we want to go 48 inches from the rear of the bed, which will be right here - go 48 inches and make our mark. On short-bed models, we are going to go with 47-7/8, and then we just want to center it in between the wheel wells, as well. And then we are going to drill with a 1/4-inch pilot hole and then finish it off with our 3-1/2 inch hole saw. I went ahead and installed the gooseneck ball. Put a second person in the bed so they can kind of hold up on the ball for you - hold the assembly in place while you go to attach the carriage bolts. We want to fasten these with the conical-tooth washers and 5/8 nuts here on the bottom side. With the four bolts loosely installed in the gooseneck assembly, we are going to go up to the bed and check our alignment with the hole we drilled, and then we can go ahead and tighten everything down. At this time, we are just going to go ahead and tighten them down with the air gun, all of the components, and then I am going to go back through and torque everything down to their specified torque rating. We want to go ahead and - I am going to go ahead and tighten the carriage bolt down first. OK, and we are going to go over and do the same for the drivers side as well. Again, I am going to start with the carriage bolts coming through the frame to the inboard side. I am going to check with the directions to verify the specified torque rating for each individual bolt. The next thing we are going to do is install the safety chain U-bolts. To do that, we are going to need to drill two 9/16 holes from underneath the vehicle here. We are going to be using the two slotted holes that go around the pull pin here. And here, on the other side, you can see they are a little bit more visible. When doing so, you see the slot is oblong here, to allow us to mount it in different areas, you want to try to catch the ribs at one of the low points - so that way, when the U-bolt sits in the bed, it is actually at a lower spot and gives you more use of your bed. You want to align the drill bit with the bottom part of the rib, and then go ahead and drill out your 9/16 holes. I am going to start off by drilling a 1/4-inch drill bit, and then I will check my alignment and go ahead and enlarge them to 9/16.
All right, now that we are back underneath the vehicle now with our U-bolts ped through, flat washer, spring and nut. We do that in all four locations, and then are going to tighten the nuts down. We want to tighten them down so that we have three threads protruding past the nut itself and that will give us ample tension on the U-bolt. All right, and with the safety chain U-bolts in place, the last thing we need to do is go ahead and the pull handle for the ball assembly. I am going to go ahead and put the orange tubing onto the end of the handle here. We are going to it from the outside of the frame inboard, and it inside this tubing here, and we will put the cotter pin in through the hole there. OK, with the cover on, we can go ahead again and, again, feed it up from the tire side up over the rail and in through the tubing on the gooseneck assembly. What we want to do is align it with the existing hole. You can see there is a hole in the end of the handle. We want to align that with the existing hole on the tubing here. With those two assembled you can see how to use the handle, and that will allow you to release the ball and lock itself back into place. From there, your installation is basically complete. We do want to make note that, if you did lower your exhaust, that you will need to put that back up into place. And on some models, if you do not have the full 1/2-inch clearance between the exhaust and the gooseneck assembly, you will need to use the spacer kits that are provided in the installation kit, for the exhaust itself. This would be one of those applications. You can see when I go to put the exhaust hanger back up, the exhaust hits. So, if you check with the instructions, depending on your model year, you are going to have to use a different bracket setup. With this particular year, what we want to do is take the larger piece of angle iron wire. We are going to seat it over the tab on the bracket. We are going to use the existing hardware at the lower location and then the new hardware to attach it up to the frame itself. What we should end up having is - again, you have got the attaching point to the exhaust hanger itself, and then you have got the two bolts up here on the frame itself. And that gave us more room here between the exhaust and the gooseneck.
From there, the only thing really left to do is to put your spare tire back up and your installation will be complete. All right, just to give a quick rundown here of the installation on top of the bed when everything is finished. As you can see we have got both the spring-loaded safety chain U-bolts here, which you can pull up on. And again, with where we drilled, they are sitting deeper into the recession in between ribs, which again allows more clearance in your bed. To put the ball in, you are simply just going to take the holes, and they are going to be facing toward the wheel wells. And you can see there is a slotted side here that will help you to line up. And just slide it in, and then we go over to our handle and release it back through and the pin will go directly through the ball. And you can see that it is locked it directly into place. To release that, you simply pull out on the handle and pull it off to the right, and that will lock itself out. That will allow you to pull the ball out freely. And then again, when you want to re the ball, you want to have the handle out in this position. Pull it, and let it push back in, and then it is engaged again inside the ball. And this will conclude the installation of Hide-a-Goose part number 9460 along with Custom Installation Brackets, part number 4430, on a 2004 Ford F-350 Super-Duty.
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