Trailer Hitch Installation - 2009 Subaru Forester

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2009 - 2009 Subaru Forester All Models

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Installation of a Trailer Hitch on a 2009 Subaru Forester

Today on our 2009 Subaru Forester, we are going to install part number 13147 from Curt. All right we will go ahead and show you, the hitch mounts up to the body of the vehicle and to get started we are going to have to actually lower the exhaust so we have more working room. All right also what we are going to do is put on a little safety strap, you can use a wire or something, just to control the exhaust so when we take it off the hangers it will not come falling down. All right we are just going to spray them down with some lubricant. And there is one up towards the front of the vehicle we will need to undo also. You are going to do the same two on the passenger side. Now with the exhaust out of the way you get a better view of the frame rail. What we have got to do next is go ahead and remove the rubber plugs here and here. We will just pop out this one here. With that one I think we can just grab a pair of pliers and pull straight down. All right we will do the same thing on the passenger side.

Next thing we are going to do is enlarge the holes to accept the hardware. There is two different things we are going to have to do. One, we are going to have to enlarge this hole so we can get our hardware into place because it is missing it to about an eighth of an inch so we will take out that much material. And then also this hole here we will need to drill out to about a half inch to get our hardware through there also. Go ahead and enlarge the hole. There is a variety of ways of doing it. You can use a cold chisel and just make a dent in it and just make a cut and just make enough room for you to get the hardware in. You can use a file or you can use a small rotary tool like we are going to use. And we are going to go ahead and do the same thing on the passenger side also. Now go ahead and drill out this hole to the half inch size.

If you go one size over, you have to ease pulling the bolt through too. Again we are going to do the same thing back over on the passenger side. We will go ahead and install our hardware now. We are going to run our bolt leader and through our first hole here and out our access hole. We will run it through. We will pull it out the backside and slip our block into place. Put in our bolt and pull it on back through. On the other side, pull it on back out. Then we do the same thing with the hardware here but we are just going to go straight up and then back down. First we will put in our bolt, push it out of our way and then the block. And then pull everything back down. All right we will go back to the passenger side and do the same thing again. At this point we can go ahead and start installing the hitch onto the hardware. We will slip the hitch over the exhaust and then up to the hardware and on this one it is a good idea to have an extra set of hands to help hold everything up while you thread the nuts onto the bolts. All right, at this point we can go ahead and move the hitch left and right. Get it centered on the frame as best as possible. And then go ahead and snug down the bolts. Once you get your bolts snugged down go ahead and torque the bolts as specified in the instructions. At this point we can go ahead and reinstall our exhaust by reattaching the rubber hangers. And with that, that finishes our install part number 13147 from Curt.

There also are different-size fish wires that we are going to use to fish into the frame. Again, there is a 7/16 size and a half-inch size as well. And I am going to go ahead and fish them into place. We are are going to start by fishing the middle hole and sort of feed that back through the hole that we enlarged. And again, this is the 7/16 hardware that we will utilize at the middle attaching point. I am just going to thread the bolt leader onto the bolt here, and we will start by feeding the block through the hole. And then follow that up with the carriage bolt. And I am just going to pull that into position. And then we want to take the half-inch bolt leader and essentially do the same thing: we want to grab the half-inch carriage bolt and the half-inch block. This time we are just going to thread it on - the bolt leader onto the bolt. This time we just want to feed the bolt into the frame first, and then the block, and then pull them straight back down into position. And we want to go ahead and do that for the other side of the vehicle as well. And with the bolts up into place, we are going to go ahead and put the hitch up now.

And again. Like the fish wire and the blocks and everything, we want to make sure we use the appropriate hardware on each bolt. There are 7/16 conical-tooth washers and half-inch ones, as well as 7/16 nuts and half-inch nuts. OK, with the hitch up into position and the hardware in place, we want to go ahead and torque the bolts down. You want to check with the instructions to verify the appropriate torque rating for each individual bolt. OK, and with the bolts torqued down, we want to make sure we put our exhaust back up into place with the hangers. OK, and with both exhausts back up into place, our installation is complete. And this will conclude our installation of part number 75650 on a 2009 Subaru Forester.

Subaru Hitch Installations

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Trailer Hitch Installation - 2009 Subaru Forester

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