Blue Ox Base Plate Kit - Removable Arms
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1990 Nissan Pathfinder
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1990 Nissan Pathfinder
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If you want a towing setup that disappears when you’re not using it, this one fits the bill. The hidden design keeps the front end clean, and the removable arms come off with a simple twist for that factory look. When they’re out, the included receiver covers keep dirt and debris out of the sockets and give the front end a finished appearance. No bulky brackets or bars sticking out—just a clean, unobtrusive setup that blends right in.
Connecting the tow bar is simple thanks to the twist-lock system. Each arm slides into place, rotates to lock, and secures with the pull pin—making hookup quick whether you’re in your driveway or at the campsite. When you’re done towing, pull the pin, twist to unlock, and remove the arms in seconds. The sturdy lugs pair perfectly with Blue Ox tow bars for a strong, reliable connection every time.
This base plate bolts directly to the chassis with no welding required. Its sturdy steel construction is powder coated to resist rust and corrosion, and the design spreads towing force evenly across the frame to help reduce stress on suspension components. Once bolted up with the included hardware, it’s ready for thousands of miles of dependable use on long trips.
Already have a tow bar that works well for you? This base plate connects directly to Blue Ox tow bars and can be adapted for use with Roadmaster tow bars using adapter RM-031 or RM-031-5 (sold separately), or with Demco tow bars using adapter DM9523041 (sold separately). Integrated mounting points make it easy to attach an electrical connector plug bracket (sold separately) so wiring stays tidy and accessible.
No need for specialized welding—this setup bolts securely to your vehicle’s chassis using factory attachment points. The installation process is straightforward for anyone comfortable with basic tools, making it a good weekend project. The kit includes all necessary mounting hardware so you can get a precise fit without extra fabrication. Specs include a 20" distance between brackets and a 14-1/2" bracket height, so you can plan your tow bar alignment with confidence.
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Today on our 2014 Hyundai Elantra, we're going to be installing the Blue Ox base plate kit with removable arms, part number BX2331. We'll begin our installation by first raising up the hood of the vehicle. With the hood up, we'll need to remove some fasteners underneath the hood here. There's a total of five fasteners that we'll need to take out. Now to remove the fasteners, we'll take a Philips head screwdriver, we'll loosen them up a little, and we'll take our trim panel removal tool or a large flat-head screwdriver and we'll pull them out the rest of the way. We'll go ahead and repeat this same process for the other four fasteners. Next, we're going to need to go into the fender well and we're going to begin here on the passenger side. We're going to need to take that bolts out right there. To remove the bolt, we're going to be using a 10mm socket.
We'll go ahead and repeat the same process over on the driver side. Next, we're going to need to remove this center under-body panel here and there are several fasteners that we'll need to remove. There's some push fasteners across the front edge, so there's back here a little bit. There's also some bolts we'll need to take out, one here, here, here, and here. It looks like there's a total of 12 fasteners that we'll need to remove in order to lower down the center under-body panel. Again, with the push fasteners first, removing them in the same manner that we did on the top side. We'll again be using a 10mm socket to remove the screws. Now to speed things up, we're going to go ahead and switch over to our battery ratchet here.
With the fasteners all removed, we can go ahead and set the panel down out of the way. Next, we're going to need to remove two push fasteners here on the driver side, one here, and one here. We'll then go ahead and repeat the same process over on the passenger side. Next, it's a good idea to get an extra set of hands to help you remove the front fascia . We go to each of the fender wells and gently pull our on the fascia, unclipping it as we go. Next, we're going to need to remove two bolts to remove this plastic piece here on the passenger side, one here, and one here. We'll again be using a 10mm socket to do this.
We'll go ahead then and repeat the same process over on the driver side. Next, we're going to need to come back up to the top side of the vehicle here at the air intake. We're going to need to remove this push fastener here, as well as this one here. To remove them, just simply push in on the center portion, that will release it, or you can then lift it out. Go ahead and set them aside for reinstallation. Next, we're over here on the driver side, we're going to need to remove this fastener that secures the wires here to the air box, a large flat-head screwdriver or a trim panel removal tool will allow you to do that. We'll then going to need take the bolt out that's right here, as well as back here on the back side.
We'll be again using a 10mm socket to do that. Next, we're going to need to come underneath the vehicle, we'll need to remove this bolt right here that's connected to the air box, again, a 10mm socket. Go ahead and slide the two pair up the air box. Now once we have all the bolts removed from the baffle, we did notice that there is one additional wire that's connected here to the top side that you're going to need to remove as well. Again, we'll just take a trim panel removal tool or a large flat-head screwdriver, work it into place here. We need to pop this wire free as well. Now we can go ahead and remove the air baffle and set it aside. Next, we're going to need to come over here on the passenger side. We're going to need to remove the inaudible 04:31 washer fluid bottle. We're going to first need to unplug the connector here with the motor, push in on the locking tab and gently pull upward. Now before we can remove the washer fluid bottle, there's a wiring harness right here that is connected to the top side of the bottle. We're just going to use a long small flat-headed screwdriver to work the fitting out of the back side. Now we've gone ahead and pull the hose off of the pump here and we put a rubber cap in place over it. Now if you don't have anything to kept this off, it will drain the washer fluid bottle. For now, we just put a rubber cap temporarily on it so that we can remove the bottle. Go ahead and work the hose up and out of the way. Next, we're going to need to reach up into here where there's a Philips head screw that we'll need to loosen up a little and we'll take that all the way out. We'll just loosen it up as it just slides over it. We'll then going to need to take our 10mm socket, we'll need to remove a bolt here, as well as in there. Now this connector right here that's underneath the reservoir bottle, we're going to need to remove that in order to get our reservoir bottle to slide out. There's a 10mm nut located on the top side of it we'll need to back out. This little connector right here is what I removed in order to get the washer fluid bottle to come free. Next, we're going to need to undo the wiring harness here on the driver side. We're going to need to remove this tab here, here, and right here. I'm going to simply take a pair of needle nose and squeeze in on it. We'll also need to go ahead and remove the actual connection point from the body. Next, we're going to need to remove these two wires here that are grounded to the vehicle's frame. We're going to move them from right here and attach them in with this ground. Now in order to get our two ground wires to reach over here to this ground point, you may have to remove some of that protective tape that the wires are wrapped up in, that way, it gives you a little more slack so that you can reach over to there. We're going to go ahead and take this one out as well so we can add in the other two. Now in order to connect this ground in with the other ones, we're going to need to take this little tab here and bend it out. We can then go ahead and reattach everything with the bolt. Next, we're going to go ahead and need to remove the horn from both sides of the vehicle. We'll start over on the passenger side, we'll go ahead and squeeze in on the locking tab for the electrical connector, gently pull outward. We'll then need to remove the bolt right here using our 10mm socket. We'll go ahead then and set the horn aside for now. Go ahead and repeat the same process over here on the driver side. Next, we're going to remove the bumper core here. To do that, there's going to be a total of four bolts, one here, here, here, and here. It should be the same on each side, as well as this little nut right here. We're going to go ahead and remove all of the bolts first and we'll come back and remove the nut on each side last, that way, the bumper core is still held in place. We'll be using a 12mm socket to remove each of the bolts. Next, we'll go ahead and remove the nut from each side. Now it's a good idea before you remove the second nut here to get an extra set of hands to help you support the bumper core structure. With the nut removed, we can go ahead and set the whole bumper core off. Next, we're going to need to do some trimming. We're cutting out some metal right here. We're going to measure from just underneath here over an inch and a half. We're going to need to trim out this area that we're marking out here with our paint pin. We'll then go down to the second rib here on the plastic. We're going to remove this section right here, this is over on the driver side and we'll need to repeat the same process, as well as cut out the same area over on the passenger side. Now to cut this section out, we need to use a reciprocating-style saw, a cut off wheel on your grinder, or any other appropriate means to trim this area out. Now that we have our driver side cut out, we'll go ahead and repeat the same process over on the passenger side. Next, we're going to need to trim the plastic here on the passenger side. Go ahead and take our paint marker and mark out where we need to trim, so we're removing this section right here. Now over here on the driver side, go ahead and take our tape measure and mark out area that needs to be cut, so you want to cut the line just above where the rib is. Here, you can kind of see the line built into the plastic. Next, we're going to go ahead and use our rotary tool with the cut off bit. We'll go ahead and trim out our plastic pieces. Go ahead and move over and cut off the driver side as well. Next, we're going to need to go ahead and temporary place our bumper back up into position. Now with an extra set of hands, we'll hold our bumper up into position, we're going to take our paint marker, and we're going to trace on the back side of the bumper the area that we trimmed out earlier. We'll need to make sure that we cut the same area out on our bumper and we'll need to do this for both the driver and the passenger side. Now that we have it marked out, we can go ahead and remove it. Now we'll need to go ahead and cut out the marked areas. Now anywhere where we have exposed metal from recently cutting out sections, it's a good idea to take a little paint and touch it off and cover over that metal; that way, it doesn't rust. Next, we're going to need to take the bumper here and we're going to need to cut the horn bracket off at this location here and here. Now since this vehicle does have two horns, we'll need to repeat the same process over on the driver side of the bumper. Now it's a good idea to get an extra set of hands to help you put the base plate into position. Go ahead and slide it up into position. Now that we have our base plate up into position, we're going to line up this hole right here, this is one of the mounting locations for the washer bottle. Next, we're going to take a 6mm bolt, a quarter inch lock washer, quarter inch flat washer. We're going to install it in this hole right here where it threads in to the existing weld nut. Now over here on the driver side, we have lined up with this hole right here. Over here, we're going to use the 6mm by 45mm hex bolt; it looks like this, quarter inch lock washer, and quarter inch flat washer. Next, we're going to need go ahead and put our base plate level with the bumper, we'll then going . over here on the driver side, take a pair of big clamps and lock it into place. Now that we have the driver side locked into place, we can go ahead and move over to the passenger side where we'll need to drill some holes out. Now that we have our base plate clamp in position, as well as a couple of screws, as well as a couple of bolts holding it into position, we're going to need to drill out the four remaining holes on each side; one here, here, here, and here. Now that we have one of the holes drilled to help secure it a little more, we're going to go ahead and take the bolt that looks like this, lock washer, and a handle nut. Now when we permanently secure them, we will need to make sure that we use red Loctite on all the hardware but for now, we're just going to install it so that it helps keep everything from moving around. We'll put the bolt in, we'll reach the handle nut in. We'll just go ahead and temporary tighten that down and then we can continue drilling out our holes. Now to drill this hole out up here, there's a lower piece of plastic right here, it's what's hitting the drill and causing it so you can get it in there to drill that. We're just going to go ahead and take our rotary tool and just trim out a little bit of this plastic here to allow the drill to feed up in it. Now that we trimmed out our area here, it gave us a little bit of access to get our drill and our drill bit up into that upper location. We also want to have and install the second bolt just the same as the first with the lock washer to help keep everything a little more secure as we drill. We go ahead and temporarily put this upper one 15:05 up here as well. Now for this bottom location, we're going to wait until we get the other side drilled out before we put that in there, that way, we can put the lock tight on it and just install it one time. Now that we've got all the holes drilled out on both sides, next, we're ready to install our hardware for good. Now on each of the hardware for securing the base plate to the vehicle, we're going to be adding some red Loctite, it's part number LT37420. Next, we'll go ahead and add our Loctite to all of our bolts. We're going to start over here on the driver side. Now that we have Loctite on all four of the bolts, make sure that our lock washers' on each and then we'll go ahead . and for the top three holes, we'll be using the handle nut that looks like this. Now to get the handle nut into position for down here, you will need to bend it in quite a few different ways in order for the hole to line up. There's not a lot of room in there, so you will have to do a trial and error and it may take several attempts to get everything to line up just right. Now with our hardware hand-tight on the driver side, we'll move over to the passenger side where we removed any bolts that we already have installed, add Loctite, and reinstall them. Now that we have all the hardware installed with the red Loctite, we'll go ahead and tighten down all the hardware and then torque it to the manufacturer specification. We'll then go ahead and take the bolt that we used to help align everything back out that will be reinstalled later when we put the washer bottle back on. We'll then go ahead and repeat the same process over on the driver side. Now with all of our hardware torque down, we're going to need to go ahead and trim off the excess handle nut piece here. To do that, we're just going to use a pair of tin snips. Now we'll go ahead and repeat that same process over on the driver side. Next, we're going to need to flip the bumper over, so this here is the passenger side. Right here is where the horn bracket was attached. We're going to come over to this hole right here and drill all the way through this bottom section. This hole here is to attach the breakaway switch bracket. Right there is where we came out. Right there is the hole we enlarged. Next, we're ready to go ahead and reinstall our bumper. Now with our bumper back in place, we can go ahead and reinstall the hardware. Once we have the hardware installed on the driver side, keeping in mind that one of the four main bolts that holds the bumper structure to the vehicle, that location had been cut off to mount our base plate. Go ahead and repeat the same process over on the passenger side. Now with all of our hardware installed, we can go ahead and tighten it down and then torque it to the manufacturer specification. Next, we're going to need to reattach our horn. We're going to begin over here on the passenger side, this little hole drilled right here in the base plate is what we'll be mounting our horn to. Now you'll notice that there's little tab or edge of the metal bracket is going to hit the base plate to get our horn to point down in this direction. We're going to need to just trim this corner off to allow the horn to fit properly. To attach the horn, we'll be using this quarter inch bolt and a lock nut. Now we've gone ahead and trimmed off a corner, you ca see here, now our hole will line up. Install the bolt, put the lock nut on the back side. Now with the hardware installed, holding the horn in place, we can go ahead and reconnect the electrical connection on the back side, as well as tighten down the bolt and the nut. Now for over here on the driver side, we'll go ahead and repeat the same process, but we are going to need drill a hole to attach the horn to the base plate. We will be reinstalling it in the same location as over on the passenger side. We're going to go ahead and plug our electrical connection in, put the wiring harness back into fitting there. We're going to make sure we have enough wire. Now we'll go ahead and hold our horn up in place. We're going to put a dot where we need to drill a hole. Go ahead and check 20:49 horn back down and we'll drill that out so that we can attach it with the bolt and the nut, the same as we use on the other side. With our hole drilled out, we can go ahead and attach our horn. Next, we're going to go ahead and attach our breakaway switch bracket. We'll be using the hole that we drilled out here on the underside of the bumper, bracket will going to go like this, and the hardware we'll be using as this longer quarter inch bolt, a quarter inch nylon lock nut. Now in order to put the nut on, you will need to reach your hand to the back side of the bumper in in-between the two beams on the bumper. Now with our bracket in the hardware in place, we can go ahead and tighten it down. Next, we're going to go ahead and reinstall the air box. Next, we'll need to go ahead and reinstall our washer fluid bottle. We'll need to reinstall the correct hardware here that goes through the washer bottle and into the base plate, this is the hardware that we used earlier to help center and hold the base plate in place while we drilled out the additional holes. Once you have the washer bottle reconnected, you want to make sure you connect any wires, as well as route your washer hose back down through and connect it back onto the palm 22:39. We can then go ahead and reconnect our electrical connector. Next, we're going to need to install our safety cable with our quick link and we will be going right here to this bracket. Now in routing the safety cable, you want to make sure that it's not going to rub against any hoses or electrical connections as these could be damaged overtime. With our cable secure, we'll go ahead and tighten down the quick link. Now that we have the passenger side completed, we'll go ahead and repeat the same process over on the driver side. Install our two under-body panels here, one on the driver side, and one on the passenger side. Now over here on the passenger side, you'll notice that our safety cable is hitting the front cover. We're just going to go ahead and trim that out a little so that we get some clearance. We're going to trim out right up here in this area to give us some clearance around the safety cable. Next, we've gone ahead and temporarily held our front fascia back up onto the vehicle because we need to figure out exactly where we're going to need to trim on this lower grille. It looks like if we take out here, and here, it will allow the removable arm tabs to slide through. We're going to go ahead and take our paint marker and mark out where we need to trim and we'll do this on both sides. Now we can go ahead and set our front fascia aside. We can go ahead and cut out our lower grille section. To do this, we'll be using a rotary tool with the cut off bit. Now after test-fitting the fascia again, we found that the safety cable arms we're hitting right here on both sides, so we're going to go ahead and trim both of these out as well. Now with our front fascia back on, we can go ahead and reinstall all the fasteners that we removed to take it off. Once it's done, we'll go ahead and put the plastic under-body panel back on as well. Now let's go ahead and show you how the removable arms work. You'll line up the slot right here with the tab that's inside there, the slot that's inside the base plate, and you push it in, pull out on the ring, twist so that it locks into position. Over here on the passenger side, installs the same way. Your tow bar will then hook to here, your safety cables will be hooked to these tabs. Here's two prongs 26:19 for your wiring that can connect to it, as well as if you remember, we connected up underneath there the breakaway switch bracket if you would install a breaking system at a later time. To remove them, you simply pull out on the ring, rotate the arm, and slide it out. When you're not using the base plate, they do come with these plastic caps that you can put in to keep dirt and debri from getting into the holes on the base plate. With that, that will do it for the installation of the Blue Ox base plate kit with removable arms, part number BX2331, as installed on our 2014 Hyundai Elantra. .
Ratings & Reviews
2025 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland. Good fit. Requires some cutting. Baseplate is heavy, so I paid an installer to do the job.
solid and simple kit for the 2021 GMC Sierra 1500. It really appears that the only reason the entire front trim has to come off is to drill two additional 1/2" holes in the truck frame to allow solid attachment of the base plate. If GM provided these, this kit would be sooo fast to install. :)
I had to slightly modify mounting holes as they did not line up with the vehicle. This is the 7th base plate I have installed on various cars and trucks and by far the most challenging.
Great products from etrailer. The videos were very helpful as I was determined to do the install myself. I’m 72 years old and thought I could do it and I did with the help of my lovely assistant, my wife. The tip on running the taillight wiring through the frame rail was great. The one problem I had was that I was never able to unplug the taillights no matter how hard I tugged on them so I had my wife hold each light while I spliced in the diodes. Very happy with the Blue Ox products and the finished look on my Jeep. Thanks again etrailer.
This Blue Ox Baseplate was easy to install and fit great. etralier sent me a video of my same make and year car showing the baseplate installation. Armed with the knowledge the video provided really made my installation job easy. Quality parts and quality service by etrailer.
An added bonus was that the baseplate and tow bar I ordered arrived in 2 days.
Instructions could have been better but was straight forward and easy to figure out. Had to widen two holes on vehicle a tiny bit to align up with plate. Was shorted two connectors to attach the safety cables to the vehicle and base plate. None mentioned on inventory but two were included. Picture showed using four.
Installation was fairly straightforward. Only thing I would add the video doesn’t mention. The hole that needs to be drilled on passenger side. I put a piece of 1x4 wood between the radiator hose and the frame when I was drilling as the hose is pretty close to the frame and could be damaged if you drill too deep. I also put the bolt heads inside engine bay with the threads sticking to roadside as I felt again to close to radiator hose. I removed washer bottle completely to give easier access.
I wasn’t real happy about how much bumper I had to trim . The activ model has a different bumper c er than the RS. The studs for mounting wiring connector wound up really gut under the tag bracket so that was a win.
The bracket seems heavy duty and well made . Follow directions in the etrailer video. Very simple install. Drilling the hole was the hardest part.
Well designed and solidly built base plate. Very good product support from Etrailer and Blue Ox.
The four 1/2 inch by 1 3/4 inch bolts are category 5 bolts. I had a bag full of identically sized bolts which were category 8. But I did not have any whizz nuts that were category 8 nuts so I stayed with the standard Blue Ox Hardware. We used POR 15 rust preventing paint at every location where we cut the steel or drilled holes. The distance from the center of the attachment tab assembly holes to the ground is 20 inches on our 2025 Wrangler Rubicon JLU with "Xtreme" 35 inch tire package. Easy five stars for Blue Ox and etrailer.
The 2025 Trax license plate frame sits lower than shown in the instructions provided with this kit, to the point where it obstructs access to the 7-way electrical connector. An alternate scheme for mounting the plate will be required if your state requires the front plate to be displayed.
The Blue Ox base plate kit was installed without a hitch on our 2024 Maverick Hybrid. It was a perfect fit! It was installed by Fantasy Truck, a referred installer of etrailer, in Odessa, MO. Brett was very easy to work with and did an excellent job! I highly recommend the Blue Ox baseplate and Brett @ Fantasy Truck!
Fits my 2013 mini cooper non turbo. Does take a few hours to install this Fit was good. The hardest part is removing the front bumper and reinstalling it. You do have to cut the lower bumper grill in three places take your time locating the exact spots for cuts. I have pulled Mini Cooper about seven thousand miles now with this Blue Ox and has worked great
The safety Cable installation left a little to be desired. I'm not sure if I installed it as designed. The cables we're really long enough to go aroiund the frame rails on our Jeep, under the Radiator mount, Aluminum Frame, I was only able to go around the Raditor mount on both sides. Didn't really seam like it was the right way, but I suspect it's only for if something comes loose that there isn't a catastrophic breakaway.
I was given a Blue Ox Tow Bar and needed Base Plates for my Ford F150. In my online search, E-Trailer had the best price, so I ordered them. Delivery was a few days earlier than expected. I read the installation instructions and it sounded fairly simple to install, so I decided to tackle it myself. I began it about six pm and had the job completed and cleaned up in just over two hours. The job required removal of the bumper and tow hooks and drilling of two holes. Also William at E-trailer was of great help in the correct parts and keeping me informed of the delivery.
After installing over 500 baseplates on various vehicles, this one was probably the toughest one . It had the off road package on it . But it fit great after I had to remove a lot that had been bolted up for 27yrs.
Tried to install this baseplate. It was a challenge to say the least. It did not fit the frame of my Jeep YJ without making modifications to the mounting plates on the driver side. I had to use a cut off wheel and remove 3/16 of an inch from the driver side spacer (which is too long. See pictures) in order to get it to clear the frame. Also, instructions say to drill an additional 1/2 inch hole in the frame for a third mounting bolt. BUT....the internal frame construction doesn't allow the nut on a stick to pass under the existing reinforcements for the bolts that mount the steering gear to the frame. Nut is way too thick to pass under the internal tubing in the frame from manufacturer (AMC).
This was instilled on a 2024 Chevrolet Colorado Z71 truck. I watched your video online with this exact model truck and the words I remember most was “and we did not have to do any trimming”. Well my truck was certainly different than what was on video. Guess it’s because it’s a late build 2024 (end of September 2024) and the grill system was maybe what would appear on the 2025 models? There was lots of trimming involved. I also will tell you the mounting holes both for the frame and the bumper back plate did not line up and required some modifications to fit. I would like to say this job is not for the faint of heart. I luckily have a mechanical/machinist background so was able to get the job done. Have not tested it yet but will be soon. Good luck to those of you who are planning on installing it yourself. Just remember it can be done. Just take your time.
Items arrived in 2 days, free shipping. All appeared in new undamaged condition.
The Blue Ox base plate for my 2015 Kia Soul is well manufactured and, with a little bit of mechanical skill, easy to install. It fit perfectly without issues. Brad from etrailer provides a step-by-step installation video that is outstanding and nicely guides through the process from beginning to end. I highly recommend this Blue Ox base plate from etrailer.
Well the blue ox base plate actually fits my turbo engine. The Curt didn't fit as advertised.
Super high quality baseplate for towing by Blue Ox. Instructions, videos, shipping (one day!) and overall experience was awesome. A bit pricey but their quality and the additional support by E Trailer cannot be beat! BTW (E Trailer) the baseplate fits three different Jeep configurations but did not call out the Recon package. After looking at other brands which showed there's to fit the 3 variations AND the Recon, I figured it would fit and it DID. You should definitely upgrade to include the Recon Edition.
lways great to shop at etrailer, especially the tech experts. Royce did an awesome job with our order. Everything fit perfectly and the help video provided the guidance I needed.
We installed the baseplate on our 2023 Encore GX AWD as well as the light harness and breakaway switch. A couple of items were incorrect but Royce corrected the issues with no problems.
Thanks again etrailer!
2019 Ford Ranger baseplate worked and fitted fine for me. 73 yrs old took me a couple hours but took many breaks. Younger could do it less than hour I'm sure.
Also works fine with my Blue Ox tow bar.
Fast del.very good instustions
Fast del.very good instustions on front tow bar
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