Roadmaster Tow Defender Protective Screening

Video Transcript for Roadmaster Tow Defender Protective Screening Installation - 2018 GMC Sierra 2500

Speaker 1: Today on our 2018 GMC Sierra 2500 we're gonna be taking a look at and showing you how to install the Roadmaster Tow Defender Protective Screening, part number RM-4750.Here's what our Tow Defender looks like installed, it's gonna protect our Sierra from rocks, debris, and any other kind of road debris coming up while we're flat towing and going down the road. The nylon mesh is gonna allow air to flow through and keep it from bouncing up and down when we're driving down the road but also keep things from coming up and hitting our truck.Now it's gonna measure 40 inches long by 72 inches wide and it's gonna be held in place by these gas struts and support bars. The gas struts are gonna provide enough tension to keep our screen taut, but also allow enough for movement while we're going down the road. Now I do want to mention that in our application we do have a rear exiting exhaust so you don't want to idle the motor home too long with the Tow Defender in place because it can cause some warping and damage to the material.The construction of our Tow Defender, all the brackets are gonna be made out of steel with a black powder coat finish to prevent any kind of rust or corrosion on them. Now when we're not using our Tow Defender we can remove the pin and clip from each side, we can take the Tow Defender out of the bracket, and then simply roll it up to where we can store it on the back of our motor home. Then they do provide us with some straps that we can wrap around the Tow Defender and in a nice, neat package to where we can just leave it right here whenever we're ready to tow.Our Tow Defender's gonna work with all Blue Ox and Demco tow bars with the appropriate brackets as well as all Roadmaster motor home mounted tow bars.

Now our Defender is gonna mount to this bracket right here which is gonna mount directly to the stinger on our tow bar and it's gonna fit any motor home with a two inch by two inch receiver tube opening. With the Tow Defender in place we can see that it's gonna keep any kind of debris from flying up, protecting the paint and finish on our truck so we can go down the road with confidence knowing that we're not gonna have any kind of damage caused by debris.Now that we've seen what our tow defender looks like let's show you how to get it installed. To begin our installation we're gonna want to lay out our Tow Defender flat on the ground and we're gonna want to have our Sierra positioned right behind our motor home but not hooked up to the tow bar.Now on our Tow Defender where the bracket is we're gonna have two of these hydraulic arms attached to it and we're gonna follow the arm down all the way to the end and we're gonna have this plastic clip with a circular hole in the end of it. Now this clip here is gonna attach to the metal bar that has this ball fitting on the end of it so you're just gonna twist it until it lines up and just push it into place. That's just gonna snap into place and we'll do that for the other side as well.Now in our kit we're gonna have a plate that's gonna have three holes on each side of the square tube.

Now if we look on the bottom corner it's also gonna have a threaded hole right here. We're gonna need to grab the bolt from our kit that has the nut already attached and we're very loosely gonna install that nut just enough so it grabs the threads. Then we're gonna slide this onto our tow bar assembly.You're gonna want to make sure that that bolt is towards your RV or away from the tow bar when we slide it on. We're gonna slide it over the stinger and we're gonna leave it loose for right now and just slide it in place until we get our tow bar reattached to our motor home. Now we're gonna tighten up that bolt hand tight so that it'll keep it from sliding back and forth.We're gonna go ahead and hook up our tow bar to our truck now and make sure that it's connected to the base plate.

Now we can take our fabric and the bracket that it's attached to and you want to make sure that those tabs or those four holes and that slot on the back are facing down so you have the notch open on the bottom side and we're gonna slide it over the stinger and line up these four holes. We're gonna go right over the stinger and we're gonna grab some hardware and we're gonna be attaching to the bracket we just mounted.We're gonna lift up the fabric and bracket and we're gonna take the three-eighths bolts that are provided in our kit, it'll be about an inch long, and a three-eighths lock nuts that are provided in our kit and we're gonna put it in the middle hole on the bracket we installed on the stinger. We can make adjustments as needed later on, but we're gonna start out in the middle. We're gonna come from the car side going towards the motor home and then attach those nuts on the backside. We're gonna come back with a 9-16ths wrench and socket and snug up our hardware.Now with the front bracket attached on our fabric you're gonna want to make sure that your tow bar arms are fully extended and in the locked position.

Next we're gonna be attaching our shoulder brackets onto our tow bar. Now we're gonna need to remove these bolts that are holding the arm in place and it's gonna be mounting up there just like this. Now depending on what tow bar you have the hardware is gonna be a little bit different. Ours is the Roadmaster Night Hawk so we're gonna be using a quarter inch Allen for the bolt and a 9-16ths wrench for the nut. Now I do want to mention you want to pay close attention to the sequence of washers that go in here because we will need to put them back in the same sequence. We can remove the nut and washer from the top and then we can pull the bolt out.Now on the inside of the arm here there's gonna be two nylon washers on the inner arm piece, one on top and one on the bottom. We're gonna need to make sure that we don't lose those. Now our kit is gonna come with three different size bolts to replace the shoulder bolt originally installed, you're just gonna need to pick which one fits the application best. Now the long one looks like it's gonna be a little bit too long because the threads are actually do not start until it's after out of the bolt. The shortest bolt looks like it's gonna be just a tad too short so we're gonna use the middle bolt.We can take our bolt, we're gonna slide it through our shoulder bracket, and then we're gonna drop our bolt down through the arm, making sure that those washers are still in place. Now it may take a little bit of wiggling to get that bolt to go through, just want to make sure that everything's lined up. Once you have the bolt through and the bracket in place loosely we're gonna take the supplied flat washer, followed up by the lock nut that they provide in our kit. We're loosely gonna thread it on hand tight, you're gonna want to position the bracket so it's coming straight out from the truck, then when you come back with a 19 millimeter wrench and socket and tighten up the hardware. Now that we have this side done we're gonna repeat that on the other side.Now if you are having trouble getting the bracket lined up you can remove the pin from the arm to take it out to make it a little bit easier to maneuver around to get everything lined up. You just want to make sure you do one side at a time and that you do have the parking brake set or your truck is in park.We're gonna loosely pull our fabric towards our truck, making sure that it's not getting tangled up on the tow bar, and then we're gonna grab our two support bars. Now if we pay attention we're gonna have several holes that are drilled in the bars and on one end we're gonna have one hole and the other end is gonna have this push pin adapter right there. These are gonna end up locking together so that we can slide that push pin in and slide that bar over there. We're gonna feed it in to the end of our fabric here.If we come to the end of our fabric, closest to our truck, we're gonna start in the middle here and we'll notice that we're gonna have two holes. We're gonna use the one closest to our truck because without the fabric being too tight it looks like it's gonna line up perfectly with our brackets. We can take one of our support bars and going towards the drivers side we're gonna have the closed end going outwards. We can start sliding our bar through, you're gonna want to feed it through each section of the fabric. Once we get to this piece we're gonna skip this one because it's right on top of the bracket. We're just gonna keep working that support tube across until we get it all the way through. Gonna actually put it in the shoulder bracket to help support it and grab the end of our fabric and feed it on.Now we're gonna take our other support bar and feed it in the other way on the other side of our bracket. Once we have both support bars in we're gonna put the one side of the support bar inside the other until we can get that push pin connector in place. We just slide them together and once we get to that button we're gonna push that button down and push the two bars together until they lock in place then we can rotate it until that push button is nice and out of the way. Then we're gonna take our support bar and we're gonna pull it into the channel on each side of our bracket.Now in the shoulder bracket you'll notice that there's a hole, that's where our pin and clip is gonna go to secure the fabric and secure everything to the bracket itself. Now our support tube does have some pre-drilled holes but as you can see none of them are gonna line up with our baseplate and with our shoulder bracket so we're gonna need to drill new holes. Now when you do drill through the support tube you're gonna want to use a 5-16ths drill bit and you're gonna want to leave it in the shoulder bracket, that way when you drill through the hole on the front and back side will be nice and straight. Now that you have one hole drilled we're gonna go ahead and repeat that on the other side. Then we can take the included pin and clip, insert it through the hole we just drilled, and lock everything down.Now with our Tow Defender all in place now's the time where we need to adjust the fabric and make sure that everything's sitting properly. We're gonna take the clips and pins out, pull the support bar out of each side, and then we're just gonna start rolling our fabric up until we get it back to the backside of our motor home. Now our kit's gonna come with some included straps, it's gonna have a buckle on it, we're just gonna wrap around our Tow Defender and clip it together and that'll keep it secure and in place, we're gonna put two on each side.Now we can see that our Tow Defender is gonna interfere with our tow bar being stored on the back of our motor home so we're gonna have to make some adjustments at the collar and possibly slide it back towards the motor home more. We're gonna come to this bolt right here and we're gonna back it off just slightly so we can slide our Tow Defender back on the stinger. We want to slide it just far back enough so that we can stow our tow bar in place on the back of our motor home. We can go ahead and tighten up that bolt hand tight so the Tow Defender will stay in place and we can disconnect our tow bar and make sure that we can still stow it back here.Now that we know we have enough clearance to stow our tow bar at the back of our motor home with our Tow Defender we can go ahead and tighten up that bolt that's on the collar back here. We're gonna grab that same 9-16ths wrench we're gonna tighten up the bolt until it's nice and snug and then once the bolt's tightened we're gonna tighten down that nut so that it's nice and tight against the receiver tube.So we're going to re-hook up our tow bar and make sure that the fabric has good tension on it. The fabric on our Tow Defender is nice and taught but it's not too tight to where it's gonna cause issues. It's tight enough to deflect the road debris from coming up and hitting our truck or our motor home and the bottom of it right here is in line with our motor home nicely but not too low to where it's gonna hit our exhaust.Now in your application if you do need to make adjustments to where it's sitting too high or possibly too low we can make those adjustments with those two bolts either going into the lower position or raising it up into the higher position. With our Tow Defender in place and everything looking good and adjusted we're ready to hit the road.That'll finish up your look at the Roadmaster Tow Defender Protective Screening, part number RM-4750 on our 2018 GMC Sierra 2500.