Gooseneck Hitch Installation - Ford F-150

Custom Fit Gooseneck Hitches

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Products Featured in this Video

Hide-A-Goose Underbed Gooseneck Trailer Hitch by Draw-Tite, Hidden Hitch and Reese - DISCONTINUED

63102-14

$349.95

Installation of a Gooseneck Hitch for 2005 Ford F150

The first thing we need to do we need to do is take out the bed liner. Once the liner is removed, the next thing to do is lower the spare tire so you can have access in the area you need to work. The next step is to go ahead and mark your truck bed for drilling. We need to find the center of the bed from left to right which in this case is approximately 50 inches. One thing to look out for when measuring front to rear always start from this edge here near the tailgate and go back to the measurement dictated in your instructions. In case it is 44 and 7/16. After that we make our mark right here and instead of drilling, we are going to make sure theres a dimple underneath and well put our harware underneath first to make sure everything is going to fit like it supposed to before we put a hole in the bed.

As you can see the rails are two different lengths one longer than the other. The longer one going towards the front of the truck and the smaller towards the rear. That will lead us to our next step when well slide those into the truck between the frame and the body to get them in their right positions. Now what we did is took our side plates and mocked up the rails where they approximately will be. Remember we just put a dimple in the bed and didnt put a hole in there, so while we have our rails in the right spot lets compare where the dimple is to make sure they line up. The dimple is right there so what you can see is that it is all set to the rear of the truck. One thing to check is make sure the head assembly is off set as well. We checked the head assembly and sure enough the ball mount is off set towards the rear. So it looks like were in good shape, all the parts are going to fit as is, and well go ahead and put our plates in and start drilling our hole before we put this in place.

Before we get too far along, one thing to consider is taking the bars back out and running a drill bit through the holes. What happens is the bolt will not go all the way through sometimes because of the paint. Just take a few moments to drill out the holes to clean them out and the bolts should fit just fine. Lets get our side plates mounted up. Well leave the those temporarily on there so it can move around and we can pull our bolts from the inside out of the frame. What you need to do next is take off the axle bump stop. Which are these rubber bumpers right here. What happens is you take these down and then slowly as you can see right here which give you more room. Then well fish wire our bolts through the frame. We run it through the access hole used here and come out this hole here and rethread it back through so it can meet this hole on the frame bracket here. The kit does come with a wire pull, sometimes it can be a little short depending on your height or working room. So what were going to do is you can take you wire pull and attach it to this and pull it through or you can wire it around the threads and pull it through.

On this side were going to use the bolt leader and thread it through this side kind of work it in the frame. Then well go underneath and see if we can pull it through the frame. Now that we have the frame brackets and the cross members installed, we need to make sure everything was going to be okay and now were going to drill it out. Now what well do is install the head assembly. Well snake it up there above the exhaust and its a good idea to have an assistant put the ball in from the topside that way they can pull up on it so your hands are free to install the bolts. That will get it in its set position and you work the rest of the bolts in. Once the bolts are installed loosely, go ahead and tighten down the head head assembly to these rails first and then you do the outside brackets. Once the head is assembly is torqued down, then we go ahead attach the side brackets to the frame rails here, and then we will do the actual brackets last. After you thread in the handle youll have to adjust it back and forth by the length of thread to make sure you get plenty of clearance. When youre done your handle should look like this, thats open and thats locked.

Next we drill the holes for the safety chains and on the Fords it says on the third hole out. Now that we have our holes drilled out we can set in the bed liner. Once you have it installed make a mark the center hole like you did before and drill a test hole first to make sure we are at the center, then well make our opening. Before drilling we use a piece of wood and stick it underneath the li ner since we know where the hole is since we drilled the pilot hole. This will keep it above the bed so we dont mess up the top part of the hitch. Once the hole is drilled go ahead and take a knife to the clean up the tailings from the drilling. Now that you have the bed liner in and a helper weighing it down, now drill out the holes for the safety chains from the bottom as done before. Once we have the u-bolt holes drilled out in the bed liner, the u-bolts in. What we do is take the spring and hold it in place on the bolt while you screw the nut on and that about covers it. All you need is two or three threads showing through and thats all that is required. This concludes our installation