Today we are going to install part number 24763 on our 2008 Honda Civic hybrid model. The hitch is going to install above the exhaust on this frame rail behind the heat shield right here. It wraps all the way around the muffler. It is also going to attach to the tow hook right here. Also on the frame rail over here just on this side of the shroud. The first step is to remove the exhaust and also, to do that, we need to remove the rubber isolator from the exhaust muffler. And that will give us some wiggle room. Next we have to unbolt this heat shield right here. Alright next what needs to happen is that this rivet right here has to be removed. We will put it back up when we are done. What we are going to do now is go ahead and hang the hitch. We are going to start off at the tow loop. As you can see, we have the U-bolt hanging down from it. It might be a good idea to have an extra set of hands to work around the muffler.
Next we can insert our handle nut into the frame. You can bend at will on the handle itself. Position it any way you want it. Once you have it that way you can go ahead and push the hitch up towards it. It is limited access here so you may have to use an extension to push the bolt in there and thread it in that way. Go ahead and repeat for the same thing on the other side over the exhaust. Next we can go ahead and snug up our U-bolts here. These are lock nuts and they will have resistance going up. That is normal. You want to try to aim for the same amount of threads on each side. Now we can go ahead and snug down the frame bolts. Then do the same thing for the other side. Alright once you have them snugged up you can give them their final torque. Alright, now we can start giving the bolts their final torque. Now you have to torque up those little bolts.
Originally, this hitch was pushing plastic out of the way. There are 2 ways to go about it. You can actually take this down and cut out around it. We actually got lucky, where we can actually just pull it down a little bit, pop it over the hitch right next to the nut and then we can actually push up a little bit on it, put our plastic rivets back in without having to cut anything. Next we can go ahead and put our heat shield up. This will go up over the hitch and it deflected a little bit to get close to the threaded holes in the frame. To help put this in alignment we are actually going to use this screwdriver into the threaded nut and just gingerly kind of work it around to put a dent in the sheet metal here. It is really flimsy so it will not take much pressure. Then we can thread our bolt in straight. One extra note, we left the exhaust down, out of the way so you could kind of see how we got the exhaust, you can get the hitch back up on there. When you do put it up there though, make sure you have the tabs for the exhaust sitting over this bar here so you can fit the exhaust back onto the block. Also it might be helpful to disconnect the exhaust behind there and do it that way also, then re assemble it. Alright, double check to make sure that it is not hitting anything or anything rattles. And you are good to go.
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