Gooseneck Trailer Hitch Installation - 2001 Ford F-250 and F-350 Super Duty

Installation of a Gooseneck Trailer Hitch on a 2001 Ford F-250 and F-350 Super Duty

Today on this 2001 Ford F-250 Super Duty we will be installing Hide-A-Goose part number 9460-48. Before we get started we need to do a couple of things in preparation. First thing we are going to do is go ahead and lower the spare tire and get it out of our way. We also want to remove the heat shield from this section directly over the exhaust and over the axle well. And then we also need to lower the exhaust off of its rear most hanger. With those three things done we can actually go up inside the bed and start by drilling our hole in the bed. We need to check with the directions to verify the appropriate length that you need to mark and drill your hole at. On this particular long bed model we are going to be measuring from the end of the bed here. My dimension on this long bed model will be 46-3/16 inches. We just want to center that mark in between the wheel wells. 00:51

And once those measurements are determined you can go ahead and center punch that mark. Then we can go ahead and drill out our hole. You want to make sure we drill a 3 1/ 2 inch hole here at this location. With the hole drilled in the middle of the bed we will go back underneath the vehicle itself and start putting the under body components in place. I want to make note here before we go ahead and slide our cross members into place. You will notice that the two cross members are a little bit different. The front rail has numerous holes here at the top and the rear one has two squarish holes at the top and two oblong holes in the middle. It may also help before we get the cross members into place to go ahead and clean off the threaded studs here at the end of the cross members to fasten the head assembly to the cross members we are going to need to put in place. Okay we can go ahead and install the cross members now. 1:46

We are going to install the rear one first and we are going to slide it in from the under side of the vehicle here. I am going to take and slide the cross member in at an angle here at a diagonal. Take and slide the driver side over the frame and then we will just take and pull it back. Next we can install the forward cross member. For this one we are actually going to be putting the driver side piece in first. With the cross members installed under the vehicle we can go ahead and put the side brackets on. Over here on the driver side, if you have the brake line here mounted against the outside of the frame rail we want to go ahead and remove that first before we put our bracket on. Simply take and remove the bolt here from the frame that will allow us to pull the brake line away. Then we can go ahead and install the frame bracket. We will start by attaching it to the threaded studs on the cross members. We want to leave those loose for the time being. We want to attach them with the flat washer, lock washer, and hex nut. Next we want to go ahead and take the 5/ 8 carriage bolt and it through the square hole here in the frame bracket. In between the frame and the frame bracket here we want to make sure we the 5/ 8 by one by two block and then from the inboard side here we want to attach using the one by three inch block as well as the lock washer and nut combination.You can see here I have got some interference with the existing wiring lead. I am going to go ahead and remove this fastener here that is holding it to the frame rail. Again we are just leaving this loose for the time being. Next we want to install our U bolt. We will be installing it through the hole here at the bottom as well as the coinciding holes at the top and again with this we want to make sure we are not pinching any lines and to the U bolt we will be adding as well a flat washer, a lock washer, and a hex nut. 3:54

When tightening the U bolt on you want to make sure that you tighten it evenly, that there is an equal amount of threads coming out of each end. Now we are going to go over to the passenger side and do the same thing and then we will go to the middle with the cross members and install our head assembly. We are going to install the head assembly through the carriage bolts that we had put into the cross members earlier. We want to the head assembly into place with the spring for the handle over here to the driver side. Go ahead and snug these bolts up. With that assembly installed go ahead and start torquing our bolts down now. You want to check with your directions first to verify the appropriate torque rating for all of the bolts. The torquing sequence will be as follows. We are just going to torque the frame brackets to the frame of the vehicle. Then next we will torque the cross members to the frame brackets. Lastly we will be torquing the head assembly to the cross members. Okay with all of the bolts torqued down we can go back underneath the head assembly here and we are going to drill out for our safety chains. You can see the oblong holes here we have got on both sides of our handle and then on the other side as well. What we want to try to do is to drill on the lower rib of the bed itself. That is going to give you the oblong hole here so try to figure out where the hole here is going to align with the lower rib in the bed. 5:37

With the holes drilled you can go ahead and your U bolts in from the top of the bed down through the head assembly. I do want to note that the U bolts that we are going to be ping through, you will notice that one has a shorter leg on it. That shorter leg is intended to go into the rear hole on the passenger side and what that does is allows for more clearance around the exhaust. And then onto the U bolts from underneath the vehicle you want to add the flat washer and then the spring and then the lock nut. And then we want to tighten those down evenly. You want to tighten them up until we are showing three threads protruding past the nut on each stud. Finally we want to install the release handle for the goose neck ball. You can see I have already installed the orange grip cover onto the handle. What we want to do is feed it from the outside of the frame on the driver side in through our existing hole here in the head assembly. You will notice that we have a small hole in both the handle and the head assembly. You want to take and align those and that will allow us to pull the pin out to release the goose neck ball. Finally we want to go ahead and put our exhaust back up into place. On some models it may be necessary to use the extension bracket that is provided with our goose neck kit. If indeed the goose neck head assembly is going to interfere with your exhaust, on this particular model we are not going to have that problem but yours may. This will conclude the installation of Hide-A-Goose part number 9460-48.