Fifth Wheel Trailer Hitch Installation - 2006 Chevy 2500HD

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18K Select Plus Fifth Wheel Hitch with Round Tube Slider by Draw-Tite, Reese and Hidden Hitch

30083

$849.95

Fifth Wheel Trailer Hitch Custom Installation Kit with Brackets and Rails - Chevy / GMC

50041-6008

$199.95

Installation of a Fifth Wheel Trailer Hitch on a 2006 Chevy 2500HD

The first step is to lower the spare tire to gain access to the under body of the vehicle. The second step is to remove the heat shield, which is located on the passenger side of the vehicle. There are 8 bolts that need to be removed to take the heat shield down. Two in the rear, four in the middle and two up front as well. After the heat shield is removed, you want to place the forward most mounting rail inside the bed and center it in between the wheel wells at the given length that is predetermined in the instructions. For the short box model which were installing this one on, the length is at 47 1/2 inches. Once you have the rail mounted and centered in the bed, you want to center punch the holes since you are going to be drilling through the bed.

Once you have center punched the markings in the bed, you want to go ahead and mark it with an 1/8 inch drill bit. Once you have drilled 1/8 inch holes in the bed, you take one of the mounting brackets and temporarily position it in place to see if the holes align with the holes in the bracket. Once were sure the 1/8 inch holes we drilled are properly aligned with the side brackets, well go ahead and enlarge the holes to 9/16 holes. Once we enlarge them to 9/16 were going to go back down and install the mounting rails on the side of the frame. Well start by putting the rear most bolt in through the existing hole in the bracket here. You just want to hand tighten these. On the forward mounting hole in the frame bracket, the frame is actually encased. So well have to use a bolt leader which is going to allow us to pull the bolt through the frame and into position. You just slide it through the access hole and come back to the under side of the vehicle, find the bolt leader and thread our bolt onto the bolt leader. Then we pull it back through the frame on the other side and secure it with the hardware provided.

Once again we just want to hand tight these for the time being. Once you get the drivers side done you want to repeat on the passengers side. Once we have them hand tightened the inside brackets on the frame, we want to secure the mounting rail in the bed. Make sure you put your spacers in to ensure metal to metal contact. Then well go below and hand tighten these bolts as well. Once you have pushed the bolts down through the bed, go ahead and hand tighten them down from underneath using the provided hardware. Just get them loosely tightened. Once we have hand tightened the mounting hardware on the forward most mounting bracket, well go ahead and lay the second mounting rail in the bed. We are going to use the slider assembly to center it on the bed itself by placing the tabs into the mounting rails themselves. You just want to be sure you are centered on the bed and you have a nice snug fit on the assembly. Once you have centered the secondary rail, center punch where the holes you are going to drill will be.

After center punching the holes we want to come back with our 1/8 inch drill bit and drill through our punch marks. Now you want to go underneath the bed and make sure these holes are lined up with the side of the frame. Once were sure these pilot holes are properly lined up with the side bracket, well enlarge the holes to 9/16. Once we have drilled out the holes with the 9/16 bit, well mount these rails as well. This rail does not need the spacers because you are actually sitting on a rail there is already no space between the rails and the bed. When attaching the rear rail below the bed here to the mounting brackets, you can see were in between ribs where the holes mount to. So we actually take these spacers and put them below the bed. Well go ahead and attach it with the proper hardware. Once we have loosely installed the rear mounting rail, we want to put the head assembly back onto the rails here to make sure everything is fitting. Were going to go ahead and pin these in here and leave them in here for the final tightening of the bolts. The head assembly will help hold everything in place as well. Once we have placed the head assembly in the bed, the last thing we need to do is tighten down the bolts. Well start with the bolts that are mounting the rails to the frame brackets here and torque them down to 72 foot pounds. After that we tighten down the bolts holding the side brackets to the frame which need to be torqued to 100 foot pounds. After we have tightened down all the mounting bolts, were going to go ahead and re-install the heat shield. The final step after we have tightened everything down is to put the head assembly together. I took the liberty of taking the temporary piece we had together off. We want to go ahead and slide the handle through, this is going to be the activating piece for the slider portion and you want to get this piece through so it activates both sides. Once we get the smaller bar slid in, you want to go ahead and put the handle portion on. You want the side with the holes to go towards the slider bars. Just feed it through the slider hole here, and you can see they just merge together.

What you want to do is look at the holes for the pins, and find the first hole and slide it as close as you can to the slider assembly, and the pin. That will work as a stop to keep the handle bar from going out. Well go to the other side and see we have another pin hole as well and put the second pin in there. Once the pins are in make sure you bend one of the tabs out to ensure they stay in. Next we want to install the slider lock cable to the unit itself. This pin is going to go through this hole here and lock out the slider assembly. They give you a bolt here so thread it directly to the slider. After attaching the pull pin were going to put the pins back into the slider assembly footings. Next step is to put the head assembly onto the slider assembly. You can see there are multiple holes you can from when attaching it. You need to find the proper height for your particular fifth wheel and install as necessary. Once the head assembly is in place, go ahead and put the king pin on top here. It is secured with these gold clips. The only thing left is to install the handle on the funnel assembly with the provided hardware. Once you have tightened all the bolts down, your installation is complete.