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Trailer Hitch Installation - 2008 Ford Taurus X
Custom Fit Trailer Hitch
This Product Fits The Following Vehicles
2005 - 2007 Ford Five Hundred
2005 - 2007 Ford Freestyle
2005 - 2007 Mercury Montego
2008 - 2009 Mercury Sable
2008 - 2009 Ford Taurus
2008 - 2009 Ford Taurus X
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Manufacturer InstructionsInstallation of a Trailer Hitch on a 2008 Ford Taurus X
Today we are installing hitch part number 87108 on a 2008 Ford Taurus X. The first thing we want to do is to go ahead and lower the exhaust. We just need to remove the exhaust from the rubber hanger here. Now that we have got the exhaust off of the rubber hanger, we want to go ahead and remove the hanger assembly itself. And we can do so by removing these two bolts here. OK, now with the exhaust hanger removed from the frame, we want to go ahead and fish the carriage bolts into the frame here on the drivers side. We just want to go ahead and run the fish wire that is provided in the kit. We want to run it through this hole and out through the access hole here at the top. Pull it down into position, like so. We want to now remove the fish wire from the thread you can just unwind it. And then we want to go ahead and put the other carriage bolts into the horizontal frame position here, as well. We will fish through the same access hole, and up out through the hole. This location gets the 1 x 2 inch block along with the 1/2 inch carriage bolt. Now I am going to run the fish wire down through the hole, like so. This position gets the 1 x 2 inch block along with the 1/2 inch carriage bolt. Pull that through like so. You want to go ahead and leave the fish wire on the carriage bolt in this position so that, when we put the hitch back up, if for some reason the hitch forces the carriage bolt back into the frame, you can just pull it back through.
All right, with the carriage bolts now in place, we want to go ahead and put the hitch up and into position. We are going to go ahead and just attach it to the carriage bolts that are coming down from the bottom of the frame. All right, with the two carriage bolts now in place on the drivers side, we want to go over here to the passengers side and prepare to go ahead and run the bolts into the frame. There is a horizontal and a vertical attachment point. They are open-ended, threadable holes that are in the frame. And we are going to use our thread-forming bolts to go ahead and make the threads into them. So we essentially put the hitch up into position and with this self-threading bolt, you might want to go ahead and do it ahead of time into the frame so that the thread is already there when you try to put the hitch up into position. So I am going to do that now. Just get the bolt in there and just get it to start. With the bolt back out, you can see now that we formed threads in there so it is ready to be used as an attaching point. I am going to go ahead and put the hitch up into position now. All right, I am going to go ahead and put the bolt into the base of the frame here, into the threaded hole that I just made. And as you can see, on this particular hitch, the hole is kind of misaligned here - the hitch does not go far enough over on the frame to align it. To remedy this I am going to go ahead and put the horizontal attaching point bolt into the frame and that will help to tighten it up, and it will pull this hitch over and widen this hole for me. And, again, on this particular bolt hole is a self-threading one as well. So it might be a good idea to go ahead and thread it through with the hitch out of position, so that you can already have the threads in place when you mount it up - which is what I have already done here. And we can go ahead and hand tighten both of these bolts into position here.
OK, now that we have got the bolts kind of holding the hitch up into position, we want to go back to the exhaust hanger here, and this actually needs to be modified. We need to cut off this tip here off of the hanger. We want to leave about 1 inch from the center of the hole to the edge of the hanger here. So I am going to go ahead and cut that off now. OK, now that we have got all of the main bolts into place here, we want to go back and and then we are going to put the exhaust hanger back on now. We want to make sure that the threaded holes that are holding the exhaust hanger up are aligned with the holes in the hitch here. It may take some tightening and loosening of the different bolts to get the holes to align. But once they are aligned, we want to go ahead and put the exhaust hanger back up. And we want to make sure that we put the block in here as a spacer in between the hitch and the exhaust hanger. It is going to give us more room so that the exhaust does not hit the hitch after installation. We want to use the new bolts that came with the hitch, as well, because they are longer and will allow for the block.
OK, we just want to leave that very loosely installed here. Next we are going to go ahead and tighten down all the bolts. We will start with the carriage bolts here on the drivers side on the bottom of the frame and on the side of the frame, and we are going to go ahead and torque those down first. Those get torqued down to 75 foot-pounds. I would recommend starting with the ones on the side of the frame so that it helps support the hitch into position. It may require the use of a deep well socket and an extension, as well, to tighten up. OK, with the two carriage bolts on the drivers side torqued down now, we want to go back over to the passengers side and torque down the two threaded bolts that we put in previously. And again, I would start with the horizontal bolt and then do the one at the bottom of the frame. Those two bolts will get torqued down to 92 foot-pounds.
I want to show you something real quick here, which is something that we get a lot of questions on with this particular hitch. As you see, I have got these bolts torqued down here on the passengers side, and there is actually still a gap here on the hitch between the frame and the hitch itself. That is OK on the forward side here. This particular flange is actually flexed to where you may have a gap here but feeling up here it is actually touching firm against the frame, so that is normal. It is nothing to be concerned with. All right, the only bolts we have left now are the ones that are holding the exhaust hanger. We want to go ahead and torque those down now. And those get torqued down to 25 foot-pounds. We want to make sure that when we are tightening these down that the blocks stay parallel with the hitch and the frame. You do not want them to turn or rotate, and that will cause them to hang up. OK, with those bolts torqued down, we want to go ahead and put the exhaust back onto the rubber hanger. And with the exhaust back on, that will conclude the installation. This is the conclusion of the hitch installation of part number 87108 on a 2008 Ford Taurus X.
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