Trailer Hitch Installation - 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan

Installation of a Trailer Hitch on a 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan

Today on this 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan, we are going to be installing Hidden Hitch part number 87451. And this installation will also apply to Draw-Tite hitch part number 75579. Before we get started, we are going to go ahead and show you what the hitch is going to look like on the vehicle, as well as give you a couple of final install dimensions which will help make choosing your hitch accessories a little bit easier. From the top of the receiver tube opening to the ground is going to measure 12 inches. And from the center of the pin hole to clear the rear edge of your bumper is going to be approximately 7-1/2 inches. 0:30

And now we will move on to the installation. Alright, we are starting up underneath the vehicle. The first thing we want to do over here on the passenger side is to go ahead and lower the exhaust down so we can gain access to the frame rail. To do this, we are going to lower the exhaust down off of its two rearmost hangers. There is one here just forward of the muffler itself and if you continue forward on the vehicle, just in front of the axle, there is a second hanger there. These two hangers are both bolted to the frame. So what we can do is just unbolt them. With the exhaust lowered down, we can go ahead and point out the mounting holes that we are going to be using to install our trailer hitch. 1:05

Looking at the bottom of the frame, you can see we have two existing bolts here, just rearward of the air conditioning line. We are going to remove those two bolts, put the hitch up and actually reuse that same hardware to attach the hitch to the frame. Looking over here on the driver side, again we are going to be using the same two bolt/weld nut attachment points. But on the driver side, we actually have a third attaching point and that will be the third bolt that is existing on the frame here on the forward side. So again, we are going to remove all of the hardware from that, go ahead and put the hitch up in position and we will be reusing that hardware on the driver side as well. 1:37

You will notice that with the installation kit there is a piece of loom provided and this piece of loom is intended to go over the AC line right here. And that is going to give us a little bit of additional protection when we go to put the hitch up in position. So I am going to go ahead and put that on now, before we attempt to put the hitch up into place. The forwards side of the hitch is most likely going to slide underneath the AC line, so you definitely want to take care when putting it up into place. One other thing that you may notice before putting the hitch up is that over here on the driver side, now that we have all three of the bolts removed from the frame, you can see that the weld plate that is inside the frame that had the weld nuts in it may have shifted on you a little bit. Your rearmost hold should be fairly close to being inline. So when you put the hitch up you can attach it to this one first. And if you tighten that down, it should start pulling the plate back down to the frame. And that will help to realign the two forward most weld nuts. 2:26

When putting the hitch up, it may not be a bad idea to have a second set of hands. So, one person can do one side and the other person can do the other side. And you can see again over here on the passenger side, when putting the hitch up, you may have to pull down a little bit on the AC line to get it in position. You can see as I tighten it down, the forward part of the plate is pulling down. And you can see now, the plate is back down but the holes are still a little bit off center. So what I am going to do is take a Philips head screw driver, come in and just pry the plate over a little bit. Realign the forward most hole. With that one aligned, the middle one will be pulled back into position. Now we just want to tighten our bolts down and then we will go back through and torque them down to their specified torque rating. With all of the bolts torqued down, the only thing we have left to do is go ahead and put the exhaust hangers back up on the frame and our installation will be complete. And with that, that will conclude the installation of Hidden Hitch, part number 87451, on a 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan.