Trailer Hitch Installation - 2003 Oldsmobile Silhouette

This Product Fits The Following Vehicles

2005 - 2007 Saturn Relay
1997 - 2004 Oldsmobile Silhouette
2005 - 2007 Buick Terraza
2005 - 2008 Chevrolet Uplander
1999 - 2005 Pontiac Montana All Models
2005 - 2006 Pontiac Montana SV6 All Models
1997 - 2005 Chevrolet Venture All Models
2005 - 2009 Pontiac Montana SV6 All Models (Canada only)
1997 - 1998 Pontiac Trans Sport Van All Models, Including Montana
2009 - 2009 Chevrolet Uplander Canada only

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Installation of a Trailer Hitch on a 2003 Oldsmobile Silhouette

Today we are going to install part number 36361 on our 2003 Oldsmobile Silhouette. This also applies to part number 90148 from Hidden Hitch. First, we will show you where the hitch gets installed. It will use this attachment point here and there is also another threaded hole behind this bracket right here. What will happen is we will put the hitch up on top the bracket, use the hitch as a template to drill out the hole in the correct location, take this bracket down and then put the hitch back up against the frame. And then, this will go on top of the hitch. There is also going to be a drilled hole around in this area, also, here. And on the passenger side, the hitch will install on these two attachment points right here, plus a drilled hole towards the rear of the vehicle, and just forward of this round slot here will be another drilled hole also. First, we will start with this bolt. And we will leave this bracket the compressor stays right there, right now.

Next, we will take off these two exhaust bolts. And we will just put this out of our way. Alright, at this point, we can go ahead and install the hitch on the frame using the existing attachment points. Alright, we can go ahead and snug this hitch up to the frame so we will use the hitch as a template to drill out our bracket for the compressor. Alright, first what we do, we found the center of the hitch hole and we just marked it. And then, we are going to drill it out with a quarter inch bit first. Alright, and then we are going to follow it up with a half inch bit. And from time to time you want to double check to make sure that you are only going through the bracket here. You may eat into the nut just a little bit scratching it will not hurt a thing. Next, what we are going to do is go ahead and take this half of the hitch down, probably loosen the bolts on the passenger side too. And we are just going to let it fall down just a little bit. And then, we will take the bracket for the compressor loose form here and also these two bolts over here. And we will reinstall it with the bracket on top of the hitch when we are done and then we will put the hitch back into place. OK, we got our bracket. And then, what we can do is slide the hitch over it and then put our bracket back up into place. Alright, we will snug those nuts back up.

And then, we will take our original hitch attachment and put it back to the bracket and into the hitch. And we will thread it back into the frame and we will be leaving that loose also. It will take a few minutes to maneuver the hitch and this bracket so you get a straight, even shot up into the frame. And then, we will install our fastener to the bracket we just drilled out. Once we have these bolts snugged up, not tight, just snugged up, we will go ahead and drill our last hole on this side and work our way over to the passenger side. First, we will drill out all of our holes with a quarter inch bit and follow that up with a half inch bit. Alright, we will go follow up all of our pilot holes with a half inch bit. OK, we will start installing our hardware and this requires use of a handle nut, which basically is a but with a handle. You can bend it to any configuration you need to match the frame. In this case, we are just going to make a simple zig zag pattern. Bend it like that, like so, and we can go ahead and put it into the frame, and line it up with the hole and then run your bolt into it. And with the passenger side, do the same thing. OK, next we are going to install our hardware for the most forward attachment point here. Now, different vehicles have different configurations at this point. Because for example, a short wheel base and long wheel base have different block configurations. Sometimes, depending on the configuration you have, you may need to put spacer blocks between the hitch and the frame. As you can see, the frame kind of comes up here. If that is the case, you need to have a spacer block. But on this model here, we do not have to worry about that because the frame is nice and flat. We will just go ahead and put our hardware on the inside and just put our extra blocks on the bottom of it.

We are going to use a fish wire tool to pull the block and bolt through. It does not come with the hitch, you can order this separate or you can use a piece of safety wire wrapped around a bolt and pull it through also. Take two of our extra blocks and just put it over our bolt here, our lock washer and our nut. At this point, we can go ahead and reinstall our hanger bracket. We will take out this one bolt here and reinstall our hanger bracket. OK, and install the two bolts to hang our bracket back in place, they come supplied with the hitch. And then, we can snug them all down. For the nuts for the bracket you can get those hand tight. You do not need much at all. And we use our torque wrench to give a final torque to the bolts and your hitch instructions will tell you exactly what torque rating you need for each bolt. Alright, and that covers our install of part number 36361 on our Oldsmobile Silhouette.

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