Today on this 2000 Cadillac DeVille we will be installing Hidden Hitch part number 90142. This hitch installation will also apply to Draw-Tite part number 36287. Underneath the vehicle we are looking at the driver side frame rail. We want to go ahead and point out the mounting holes for our trailer hitch installation. You can see we have got an existing hole here that is going to provide our attaching point for the bottom of the frame. Here on the inboard side of the frame you can see we have got a weld nut and then a little bit more forward we have got a hole with a notch cut out of it. Those two points are going to provide our attaching points in the side of the frame and again that is going to be the same for the passenger side as well. 00:40
The first thing we want to do in preparation to installing our trailer hitch is to go ahead and clean out the weld nuts on both sides of the frame thoroughly. To do that we are going to use a spray lubricant like a WD-40. Let that soak and then take a wire brush of sorts. I am going to be using a battery terminal cleaner. Lets run it in there a few times and we are probably going to need to do this more than once to really get all of the road grime and corrosion out of there. Do that a couple of times and then use your bolt, test fit your bolt in there and make sure it will thread in properly. With the weld nuts thoroughly cleaned out we can start fishing our bolts in to the frame for our mounting hole here and our mounting hole here. 01:32
The instructions indicate to go ahead and use one of these three holes at the bottom of the frame to fish your bolts through. You can do that, you will have to enlarge the holes a little bit. What we can use if you go to the outboard side of the frame just forward of the exhaust hanger here we have got two square access holes that are plenty big enough to accommodate both the block and carriage bolt. We are going to be using the bolt leader that is provided with our installation kit. Feed the bolt leader. Start with the hole that we are going to be feeding the bolts down through and feed that over and out the access hole. We will first take the lock, feed it on to the bolt leader, followed by the carriage bolt which will actually wrap the threads of the bolt leader around the threads of the carriage bolt. Take and feed them into the frame independently of each other and pull them into position. You may have some interference from the bolt right here holding the exhaust bracket on. If that is the case then you can lower it out to put your hardware into place and then put it back up into position. Then put the hitch up into position. 02:59
You may find that when you put the hitch up into position that you have some interference from this bumper bolt coming through. If that is the case then you want to go ahead and feed the hitch up and over that bolt first and that will allow the carriage bolt to through. You want to be careful not to push the carriage bolts up in the frame. Next come over to the side of the frame and go ahead and install our 8 millimeter bolt into our weld nut that we cleaned out earlier and we want to leave everything kind of loosely installed until we get all of our hardware in place. Finally go ahead and install the carriage bolt and block into the last hole in the side of the frame. Attach that with the conical tooth washer and nut. When torquing the bolts we are going to start by torquing the carriage bolts at the bottom of the frame first and then work our way to the side of the frame and torque those two bolts down. We want to check with the directions to verify the appropriate torque rating for all of the bolts. You may have trouble getting a torque wrench in to tighten the final bolts here on the side of the frame. If that is the case you can take an open ended wrench and kind of hand tighten it as much as you can and put a cheater bar in there and give it about a half turn. It should be pretty close to the recommended torque rating for the bolts. For some added dimensions here, from the top of the receiver tube to the ground with the hitch installed is 10-3/ 8 inches and from the center of the pin hole to the back side of the bumper is 6-1/ 2 inches. That will conclude the installation of Hidden Hitch part number 90142 on a 2000 Cadillac DeVille.
Do you have a question about this product?
With thousands of product installations and troubleshoots, we don't just sell this stuff, we know how to install and use it.
Please include the year, make, and model of your vehicle, being as specific as possible, if you have a question about a custom fit product.
Subject:
Name:
Contact email:
How can our experts help?
