Thule Easyline Trailer Assembly Review

Review of a Thule Easyline Trailer Assembly

Today we are going to do an assembly of part number TP205 from Thule. This is one of their small utility trailers. Now, this assembly video will cover the other trailers in the same line. The main difference is that it is just going to be a little bit smaller trailer. The components are virtually the same. There are a few minor differences but this will cover all the main parts of the assembly. As you can see here, the kit comes with a variety of components. First off, you have the base, or the floor of the trailer, and its frame. And next you have the axle it does come with the tires and wheels - 12 inch tires, in this case. And it does come with the fenders, also. And next we have the hardware assembly. It comes with all complete hardware there is nothing extra needed to buy. And it does come with a couple of small wrenches, too. Also, above that is the lighting assembly. And as you can see, you have the rest of the body components: the two long sides, and the front and rear and finally the tongue itself that will connect your trailer to your hitch.

We will start our assembly by installing the axle on the floor of the trailer. It is pretty easy you may need an extra set of hands to get it up there. When you place the axle on the bottom of the trailer, you want to make sure that the portion is kind of pointing toward the back of the trailer. And you can tell the back of the trailer by the mounting holes that are already installed: There will be three of them on the back and there will be two of them on the front. All right, next we can install the axle on the frame here. It uses two bolts per side. You have the bolt, a flat washer and a lock washer. And you want to do the same thing on both sides. Just get the hardware started first. And once you have them all started, then you can go ahead and tighten them down. Next the bracket gets installed in place right here. This bracket actually keeps the tongue straight on the trailer as well as the latch mechanism for the tilt. You want to run these down as far as you can with your fingers. And then, when we put the tongue in place, then we will tighten these down for good. All right, next we will install the tongue. And these wires right here, you want to run through this channel bracket. Once you have this in place, then you want to go ahead and install the bolt and lock washer that will hold it together. We will tighten these down with a 17-mm wrench and socket. You do not want to tighten this down too tight because it still has to tilt. Now that we have got our tongue in place - and we just left this temporarily there - now what we want to do is install our guides to help keep the tongue straight also. We are going to take out these bolts this will actually help hold this in place, too, the weight of it. The bracket goes on just like that. And again, re-install the bolt you have got one on each side. And again, you still want to leave them loose for now. Put your pin through, and go ahead and install the safety clip here. That will help keep everything in alignment. Then we can tighten down these bolts. And we are using a 12-mm socket on this here. Now we can install the back panel with the lights on it. And that just sits on the back of the trailer. And line up with the three holes in the back, and they just go ahead and get bolted down with the bolts and lock washers. And we will tighten those down with the 12-mm socket, too. Now we are going to install our reinforcing bracket, it is going to go between the light board here and the frame. And it is going to sit in place just like that. And you can go ahead and tighten these brackets down, starting with the bottom bolt here. Do the same thing on both sides.

Next we can work on some of the electrical here. We will install the side marker lights. The red ones will go in the back and the amber ones will be going up toward the front of the vehicle. It is a pretty simple, bolt-on affair take a bolt and just put it in the hole. And then just install a nut behind it and tighten it down. We are using a Phillips screwdriver and an 8-mm wrench to hold everything in place. All right, we will move on to the front of the trailer for the amber one. Next we will start on our wiring connections it is pretty simple with the tail lights back here: it is going to be a color-for-color matchup. So, we have got blue here we have got a blue connector here. And they simply push together, and then the blue cover kind of slides over the top. And give it a twist and it locks into place. Now we will repeat the same thing for the other side with the red connector. Again, red to red. Make sure your connection is tight. Then put the cap over it, and then lock it into place with a twist. Now, leave these wires sit for now we will straighten them up a little bit later. Each of these connections we just made here, you are going to find a wire that goes off into nothing. This part will actually run to the front of the trailer, and there is going to be one for each side. Let us go ahead and slide it through the axle components here. It is all one piece there are no moving parts so there is no need to worry about that. And this will come to this front marker light right here. And we are just going to leave these two ends together right now. And you want to do this on both sides. Next we will start on our wiring connections, and we will start with the easy ones, here, working from the front on our way back. And the wiring connections are really simple. Basically, you just place your wire inside this plastic form right here. Just kind of press it into place a little bit. And then the white cap goes over top and does all the work. Basically, there are two needles in this plastic form that pierce the wire and make the connection. So, you just push them together as tight as you can, and then go ahead with a pair of pliers and snap them into place. It does take a considerable amount of pressure to make a good connection. But once you have this white cap snapped onto the end right here, you know you have got a good connection. All right, next we will work on the wire that goes to the license plate light. Again, it is the same principle. Just snap it onto the wire, put your cap over it, and squeeze it into place. And then, same thing with the running light in the back here. Just go ahead and just stack that a couple inches in front of it and do the same thing again. Now, at this point you may want to consider how to fasten this down to keep it from drooping. But for simplistic illustration right now, we will just leave it out in the open so you can see where everything goes.

Let us go ahead and put some wheels on this so we can flip it over and work on the other side. The wheel uses lug bolts instead of lug nuts, and they just thread into the hub. Then we are going to snug them down with a 3/4 inch socket. All right, we are getting them as tight as we can for now, but once we get the trailer on the floor and on its wheels, then we will tighten them down more, because we will actually have more leverage then. And obviously, you are going to have to repeat for the other side. Next thing we are going to do is tighten up this bolt right here. Right now it is loose for shipping purposes, and we are going to take off this knob and we need to show you that this is threaded stock and that it is bent on purpose like that that is the way it was engineered. So, and also what you want to do is, when you tighten it down, make sure that this little flange goes into the hole here and stays underneath the bracket right here. So once it seats snugly in there, you can go ahead and put your latch back into place and tighten down the knob. Just snug it up. And then we will tighten this bolt down on the bottom here - and that will be done with a 17-mm socket. At this point we can start installing the body components. We can start with the front. Sit this on the front edge and just go ahead and install your bolts. And basically, just get them about finger tight because all we are going to do is just set the bolts in place and we will have to fit the body components together. The drivers side body panel is going to go on right here and it does fit between this bracket and the frame, right here. So we are going to have to go ahead and re-loosen this up just to slide it in there for now. Basically, tightening it up before was just to help keep this from getting knocked around and everything. We are going to go ahead and install a bolt on top here. Again, just finger tight. Now this is kind of a tricky spot here, but you have got to bring your bolt from this inside edge into the body panel. And it is kind of a tight fit so you have to be careful of your fingers because sometimes the edges are kind of sharp. All right, and there are two more bolts that go on the bottom of the panel here that go down to the frame. Install those. Again, we are leaving everything just finger tight. That way we can move the body components around to make everything fit. All right, and basically at this point we are going to go ahead and do the same thing on the passengers side.

All right, next we will go ahead and install the tailgate. And that just slides on the hinges and then we just go ahead and push it into place and latch it in place. All the body components are in place right now, so go ahead and check for square. If you have got anything else out of line, go ahead and take a minute to fix that. And at this rate we can go ahead and tighten up all the bolts for the body components. It is a good idea to make sure you have got your corners squared up, and then do these two body bolts first. And then do the bottom make sure everything is as square as possible. Once you have got these two connected, from here to here, then you can tighten down the body components that will go to the frame. All right, now we can go ahead and install the fenders. The two bolt holes right here are where it attaches to it. All right, go ahead and repeat for the fender on the other side.All right, fenders are in place, the body components are in place. One last detail is the safety chain hook, and that just simply snaps onto the loop here. And this part will go onto the hitch of your vehicle. And this part is your 4-pole flat that will plug into your vehicle. And basically your trailer is ready to go. All right, and that concludes our assembly of part number TP205 from Thule, the Easyline Trailer.

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