Today we are going to be installing Hidden Hitch part number 87717 on a 2001 Dodge Grand Caravan. Okay, the first thing we want to do in preparation for installing the hitch is to remove the spare tire. Taking a look at the drivers side frame rail, you can see we have got two existing weld nuts here at the bottom of the frame. And we have also got a hole here that is a little bit more forward. We are going to be removing this bolt from both the drivers and passengers side frame rails. That is going to provide our rear-most attaching point. This oblong hole here in the middle, we are going to be ping this carriage bolt and block from inside the frame down through, and that will provide our middle attaching point. And then we will be doing the same thing for the forward attaching point. And that is going to be the same on both sides of the vehicle. To get the carriage-bolt-and-block assemblies inside the frame, we are going to be using the fish wires that are provided in the installation kit.
And we will show you how to fish those into place here in a minute. The first thing we do is go ahead and remove the bolts from the end of the frame rails, and then we will go ahead and fish our carriage-bolt-and-block into position. We are going to take the fish wire, feed it through the hole that we are going to be pulling the bolt-and-block down through, and we are going to feed this all the way to the end of the frame, where there is a hole here, which is kind of hard to get to - but it is there. There is a little bit of a rubber flap - there is a little bit of a plastic flap that is kind of covering the opening at the end, but the fish wire and the bolt-and-block will be able to push past that. There is just enough length to make the run all the way to the end of the frame. So you want to be careful, once you get it through, not to pull the other end out over here. What I am going to do is, I am going to go ahead and hook that under so it will kind of hold itself into place for me. That should help keep it from pulling through.
Okay, and we just want to take the block first and feed it onto the fish wire - or bolt leader, as it is called as well - and then we want to take our carriage bolt and just thread it onto the bolt leader. Then we will just take the other end and pull it on through. You will sometimes get some interference from this bolt when trying to pull your carriage-bolt-and-block-assembly in. Sometimes it will hang up on this. If that is the case, you can go ahead and loosen this one up, just enough to get the bolt-and-block around it. We will just pull it down into position. I am going to repeat that procedure not only for this one and this one, but for two on the other side as well.
You want to be careful when you are putting the hitch up into position that you do not knock the bolt back up into the frame. And when using the conical-tooth washers, you want to make sure that the teeth are facing up into the trailer hitch. Okay, then you want to go ahead and just tighten those up. And lastly, we will come back through and torque all the bolts down. You want to check with the directions to verify the appropriate torque rating for each individual bolt. Okay, and if you had also loosened up this bolt, then you want to make sure you torque that one down as well. We just want to go ahead and put our spare tire back up into place and our installation will be complete. And this will conclude the installation of hitch part number 87717 on a 2001 Dodge Grand Caravan.
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