Curt Custom Fifth Wheel Installation Kit for Chevy/GMC - Gloss Finish

Video Transcript for Curt Fifth Wheel Kit Installation - 2015 Chevrolet Silverado 3500

Speaker 1: Today on our 2015 Chevrolet Silverado 3500, we're going to be taking a look at and showing you how to install the Curt custom fifth wheel installation kit in carbide finish part number C16411-204. Now it is also available in a gloss finish using part number C16411-104.Now the whole point of our base rails is so that we can mount a fifth whee hitch in our truck and safely tow either a fifth wheel or a gooseneck down the road. The rails are going to have several different mounting locations in there and they're going to accept industry standard fifth wheel hitches or gooseneck adapters. And the nice thing about our rails is when we're not towing, we can pull our fifth wheel out and our rails are only going to stick up from our bed about an inch and a half.Now our rails do come with a custom installation kit, which is going to cut down on the installation time making it a little bit easier and also reduce the amount of drilling that we're going to have to do. We are going to have to drill five holes per rail in order to get them installed. Those rails in the bed are going to attach to our frame brackets here.

And we're going to have two existing holes in our frame that are going to line up with the bracket, making it that much easier to get installed.As I mentioned before, our rails are going to accept all industry standard fifth wheel hitches like we have here our Curt Q20. It's going to match that carbide finish nicely. Now that we've seen what our rails look like and seen what they can do, gone over some of the features, let's show you how to get them installed.In our installation, you're going to want to move your fifth wheel and head either out of the way so we have enough room to work, or you're going to want to pull it out of the bed. But we are going to need it finish up the installation, that's why we just moved ours back. Now you're going to want to grab one of the rails and you're going to put it in the bed and you're going to find a few measurements in your instructions that we're going to have to measure from the edge of our tailgate to find out where that edge of the rails going to be.In our application, our truck did have a gooseneck prior to this.

So then if you're wondering, that's why we have this large hole in the bed, but we already checked and it's not going to affect anything with our rail or any of our installation. Now when you begin your measurements, you want to make sure you hook your tape measure right on the edge of the bed. You don't want to touch the tailgate or go any farther than that. You want to make sure it's nice and firm against the edge of the bed here.Now depending on if you have a short bed or long bed truck, we're going to have a couple different measurements because each one's going to be slightly different. So we're going to measure on our rail and we're going to go in a few different spots going across, so we can make sure it's nice and square.

And once we have the measurement made, we're going to take a marker or something so we can see where that spot is. First we'll make a nice little mark so we know that the edge of our rail is right there. And we'll do that going across the entire rail.Now once you have the rail positioned away from the tailgate in the correct spot, then we're going to need to make sure it's centered. The easiest way to do that is going to be find a spot that you can mark or hook your tape measure on the side. And we're going to want both sides to have the same measurement measuring in the same spot.

Then once you do, you know it's going to be nice and square. With the rail in the correct position, we're going to need to mark our mounting locations.Now we're going to be using the outermost holes on each side. We're going to be using the back and the front hole. So I'm going to take a paint marker and I'm just going to color in the center of that hole. We'll do that for both sides for the front and back. Now we're also going to be using the center hole and it's going to be the one closest to the tailgate. So we'll go ahead and mark that one out as well. And once you have all your holes marked, the four on the sides and the one in the center, we're going to go ahead and move our rail out of the way and we're going to need to drill those out.Now you're going to want to grab somewhat of a small drill bit and you're going to drill right in the center of where you marked. I do want to mention, you always want to double check what's underneath to make sure you're not going to drill through any wires or any lines or cause any damage to anything. Now we'll repeat that for all of the remaining holes we marked.With all those holes drilled, we're going to come back with a step drill bit and we're going to enlarge all of them to a 9/16. Now it's not required, but I'm going to come back with a little bit of spray and paint and I'm going to spray all the holes that I just drilled, which hopefully will keep rust from building up.We're going to get ready to put our frame brackets in place. Now over here on the passenger side, the way you're going to know you have the right bracket or the right side is you want to make sure those tabs are facing towards the center of the truck. And on the passenger side, if we look there's going to be a smaller section and a larger section. We want that smaller section going towards the front of the cab. And again, with those tabs facing towards the center of the truck.So we're going to know this is going to be the passenger side. So give you an idea of where this is going to go, we're going to take those tabs and you're going to go over top of the frame. It's going to line up these two oblong holes with the two round holes in our frame here. So before we put this in place, we are going to have to get our hardware in. So we're going to move underneath to the inside of the frame and I'll show you how we're going to get our hardware in place.To start out, we're going to take our pull wire they provide in our kit and we're going to put it into one of the mounting holes into the frame and then we can move to the other side of our frame. Now right above the jounce stop on the inside of our frame here, we're going to have a large access hole. Now you may need to reach in, kind of turn that pull wire around just so you can get ahold of it. We're going to want the coiled end to come out on the inside of our frame here.Then we're going to grab one of our large 5/8 spacer blocks. We're going to slide it over the end of our pull wire. We're going to slide it into the frame. Then we can take our large 5/8 carriage bolts. It's going to be the brown head with the small square underneath. We're going to thread it on to the end of the coiled wire. Then we're going to push that into the frame and we're going to pull that wire on the other side. It may take a little bit of patience, a little bit of time. I will say you don't want to do too much pulling if it's not coming because we are going to have to use these pull wires for the other side. Might have to rotate it a little bit, but our main goal is to get that bolt to come out through the spacer block and out the frame.Now once we have this one pulled through, we're going to leave the pull wire attached and we're going to repeat that for the other mounting hole. Now this forward mounting hole, if you're having a little bit of trouble getting that bolt to go through the block. What you can do is, you can actually reach through this oblong hole right here and help guide it through by pushing on it. Again we're going to leave these pull wires attached until we get our bracket in place.So we're going to take our pull wires and coming from the inside going towards the outside. I'm going to go through the oval holes in the bracket on the back and the front. Then we take our bracket loosely get into position. You're going to want to pull the excess wire out, so that the bolt comes through. We can go ahead and remove the pull wires off the bolts. And we're going to take a 5/8 flange nut and we're going to secure it to that carriage bolt. We're just going to leave these hand tight for now. Then repeat the same process on the other side. We're going to have that same access hole just on the drivers side of our truck.Now the driver's side is going to be a little bit more difficult to get everything into place because we are going to have a few lines as well as some electrical components. But we can still gain access to that access hole in the frame here just right above the jounce stop. You're just going to want most likely go over the line and come in or go below the lines over the electrical. Whichever is easier, you're just going to use that same process of fish wiring everything in.We're going to position the rail back over the holes we drilled earlier. We're going to take our half inch carriage bolts. We're going to drop them down through the mounting holes. And like on the edge here, you can see there's a slight gap because of the corrugation in our bed. Anywhere that you have a low spot where the rail is not touching the bed, we're going to take one of these spacers, it's going to be like a U shape. We're going to slide that underneath the rail so it's nice and tight up against the bed and the rail itself. That way it won't crush the bed or the ribs. Now we're going to repeat that for all the remaining holes and again anywhere we have a low spot, we're going to put that U shaped spacer in.Now underneath our bed where our bolts came through, since this middle bolt was in a high spot. The bottom side is going to be in a low spot. So we're going to take another one of those spacers and we're going to go around the bolt just like we did on top with this side on the other side. And then we're going to follow that up with a square spacer block. Then finally we're going to secure it with a half inch flange nut. That's going to be the same process for all of our bolts coming down through our bed, but if you're in a spot like we used those spacers up top on the edge, we're not going to be using them on the bottom. We just want to make it so it's nice and even. And as you can see that spacer's going to be pretty even with the low spot in the corrugation.So if you have any spots that are like that, you're going to want to make sure that you use that spacer block so they can even up and it's going to be nice and tight. And we'll repeat that using the square spacer and the flange nut on the remaining four bolts on the outside.Now we're going to come back with a 3/4 inch ratcheting wrench and we're going to snug up the hardware. Now we don't need to tighten all the way. We just want to make sure that it's nice and snug, so that rail's not going to move around inside the bed. And we'll repeat that for any remaining hardware.Now you're going to want to set your fifth wheel in the forward rail. And the way we're going to find a position for our rear rail is we're actually going to put it in place. So with an extra set of hands, we're going to lift up on our fifth wheel and we're going to slide the rail back til it's pretty close to where it's going to go into position. Then once we have it in place, we're going to make sure that it's nice and snug going towards the forward rail towards the front of our cab.With our fifth wheel still attached, we're going to go ahead and measure and make sure that we get the same measurement from the edge right here to the edge of our rail on both sides. That way we know it's going to be nice and square. Now we're going to do the same thing in marking the holes just like we did for our forward rail. Except this one, we're going to be using the second hole from the edge. We're going to do that for the front and back as well. Now the center hole we're still going to go towards the tailgate and use that center hole.With all of our holes marked, we're going to go ahead and move our fifth wheel and the rail out of the way and we're going to drill out those marks that we made, just like we did with the forward rail. Now we're going to take our half inch carriage bolts, just like before we're going to drop them down through the holes that we drilled. Now again you're going to want to pay attention to see where the rail is sitting on the corrugation of our bed. Fortunately, all of our bolts and mounting points are going to be on the high side, so we're not going to have to put any spacers on top, but underneath we will. Just like we did before on the forward rail, we're going to take one of our U shaped spacer blocks. That's going to take up that gap in between the bed corrugation. We're going to follow it up with a square hole spacer. And then finally we're going to secure everything with another one of those half inch flange nuts.Over here on the side of our frame rail, we're going to take our U shaped spacer blocks and we're actually going to in between the bed and the bracket and we're going to take up that gap, since there is that slight gap because of the corrugation in the bed. So you're going to want to slide it in and get it right up against that bolt. And it doesn't have to be facing any certain direction, you just want it in there so it's against the bolt and it's going to take up that gap. Now it may be necessary to kind of pry it down a little bit to get that spacer block in place. But you want it to go in between the bracket and the bed itself. We can grab that square spacer, slide it over the bolt. And again take another one of those half inch flange nuts and secure everything down.Now the heat shield is going to pose a slight problem getting access to the bolt over on the passenger side. So I'm going to take a 225 Torx bit and I'm going to remove the bolts that are holding it in place or at least most of them so I can swing it out of the way. Now there's going to be one bolt that we're not going to be able to get access to because it's going to be right above where our spare tire cable is. But we should be able to just loosen up those three and then swing that heat shield out of the way so we can gain access to those bolts.Now here on the passenger side, we're going to do the same thing with those U shaped spacer blocks. We're going to put them in between the bracket and the bed. And again, we might have to pry just a little bit to get them into position. If you do have to pry it, I just want to mention be careful. If you can use a screwdriver or something else rather than your fingers to push that spacer into position. Once you have the spacers in position, again we're going to take that square spacer block and secure everything down with that half inch flange nut.With all the hardware in position, we're going to come back with that same 3/4 inch ratcheting wrench and we're going to snug up all the hardware for the rear rail. Using a 15/16 socket, we're going to come back and snug up the 5/8 bolt in the side of our frame. We'll repeat that for the other side as well.I'm going to come back with that same 15/16 socket and I'm going to torque down all of my frame bolts to the specified amount in the instructions. You want to come back with a 3/4 inch socket for all my half inch hardware. I'm going to torque all of that down to the specified amount in the instructions. We're going to repeat that for all of our remaining hardware.With our hitch all torqued down, we can start putting back our heat shield that we took down earlier. And that'll finish up your look at the Curt custom fifth wheel installation kit, part number C16411-204 on our 2015 Chevrolet Silverado 3500.