Trailer Hitch Installation - 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan

This Product Fits The Following Vehicles

2001 - 2004 Chrysler Grand Voyager Mini Van All, Including 4 WD
1996 - 2004 Chrysler Town and Country All, Including 4 WD
2005 - 2007 Chrysler Town and Country without Stow-N-Go seats
2001 - 2004 Chrysler Voyager Mini Van All, Including 4 WD
1996 - 2004 Dodge Caravan All, Including 4 WD
2005 - 2007 Dodge Caravan Without Stow-N-Go seats
1996 - 2004 Dodge Grand Caravan All, Including 4 WD
2005 - 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan Without Stow-N-Go seats
1996 - 2004 Plymouth Grand Voyager Mini Van All, Including 4 WD
1996 - 2004 Plymouth Voyager Mini Van All, Including 4 WD

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Installation of a Trailer Hitch on a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan

Today we are going to be installing hitch part number 87717 on a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan. We are underneath the vehicle now and I am going to go ahead and point out the attaching points that we are going to use for the hitch. As you can see there are 2 existing bolts in the bottom of the frame as well as a center hole here as well. The hitch is going to utilize this bolt here, as well as this hole here. On 2001 and newer models, we have a hole that is going to be existing here as well that the hitch is going to utilize. On this particular model, they do not have the hole already in the frame so we are going to have to go ahead and drill that out. So the first step is going to be to go ahead and take out this bolt on both sides of the frame. And then I will run it back in. It basically cleans the threads out themselves.

A quick footnote, when removing this bolt if you have an older model vehicle that has seen a few winters there is a good chance that there is corrosion built up on the top side of that bolt. So you want to go ahead, if you are having trouble getting the bolt out do not force it. Get it out as far as you can. You can can, try to spray some WD40 through this access hole onto the top of the bolt to give it some lubricant there to help it get out. Otherwise, if you force it too much you could snap the weld nut inside the frame. Now that we have the 2 rear bolts removed from the frame, we want to go ahead and put the hitch back up into position so we know where to mark the holes. We want to re use the bolts that we just took out of the frame. Then I am going to go ahead and hand tighten those up and then we are going to drill out the holes in the rear now. Alight, we have the hitch up into position now and we are going to go ahead and drill out the forward most holes. Again on 2001 and newer models this hole is existing so you can go ahead and skip this step in the procedure.

I am going to start by drilling a 1/4 inch pilot hole and then we are going to enlarge that to a 1/2 inch. Now that we have that hole drilled in the forward most location, we want to go ahead and fish the bolts through the frame to mount in these locations. The carriage bolt and block are going to go in both locations on both sides. We are going to use this bolt leader here, to fish them through the frame to get them into position. And what we want to do here is take the bolt leader, run it through the access hole and we are going to fish it to the end of the frame back behind the bumper. It is kind of hard to see hear but if you feel up into the frame here there is a hole here. It will actually feed through and out. You can kind of see that there. The bolt leader is coming out now and, with that in position, we want to put the block on first over the bolt leader. We want to be careful that we do not pull it through too much or this comes out of position.

And then we want to take the bolt and we are going to actually use the end there and wrap it around the threads of the bolt. We just want to pull those through the frame. And in this instance it may be easier to get the bolt and block through the frame if you loosen these 2 bolts here. The bolt and block have a tendency to want to catch on the top side of the bolt here. Then we will pull it down into position like so. We are going to do the same thing for the rear location here as well. With those pulled down into position now, we just want to go ahead and tighten these bolts back up and put the washer and nut assembly onto the bottom of these bolts. We want to do this for the other side as well. Now that we got the fasteners all up into position, we just want to go ahead and torque the bolts down. The M12 fasteners, the existing ones, get torqued to 68 foot pounds. Then the 1/2 inch fasteners that we added in get torqued to 75 foot pounds. This concludes the installation of hitch part number 87717 on a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan.

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