Reese Quick-Install Custom Installation Kit w/ Base Rails for 5th Wheel Trailer Hitches

Video Transcript for Reese Quick-Install Custom Base Rails Kit Installation - 2018 Ford F-250 Super Duty

Speaker 1: Today on our 2018 Ford F-250 Super Duty we're going to be taking a look at and showing you how to install the Reese Quick Install Custom Installation Kit with Base Rails for fifth wheel trailer hitches, part number RP50074-58.Here's what our rails look like once we have them installed. This is going to allow us to put a fifth wheel into the bed of our truck and hook up to our fifth wheel trailer. As you can see here, our rails are going to fit most industry standard fifth wheels like we have here with our Reese. As you can see, our rails are going to stick up about an inch from the bottom of the truck bed, but when we take out fifth wheel out we'll have full bed access to store everything we need. If your Ford doesn't have the factory prep package in it, this is going to be a great way to get a fifth wheel in the bed of your truck. With Ford moving to aluminum truck beds, having two dissimilar metals can cause corrosion.

Well in our kit they're going to provide us with a strip for every piece of steel that's going to contact the aluminum to prevent that corrosion from happening. All the pieces of steel in our kit are going to have a black powder coat finish, so they're going to resist scratches, rust and corrosion.Our kit is custom designed for our Super Duty and it's going to use existing holes in the frame, so we're not going to have to drill at all into the frame. Now some of our customers did have some trouble getting these spacers in above these frame brackets. It is a little bit challenging to get them in there, but other than getting those spacers in it is really straightforward. The whole kit is going to go in with just about 15 bolts.

They even label the brackets for us so we know which side they go on. Now that we've seen what it looks like and gone over some of the features, let's show you how to get it installed.To begin our installation we went ahead and removed our spare tire so we have a little bit more headroom when working underneath. Our vehicle doesn't have the plastic wheel well liners, but if yours does you're going to need to pull those out as well on both sides. Then we're going to grab one of our rails and we're going to lay it upside down on our tailgate. We're going to grab the plastic strip that comes in the kit, and since the bed is made of aluminum we want to make sure this is anywhere that any steel is going to be touching it.

You can see there are going to be kind of precut holes in there, so we want to line it up on the edge so that the holes will line up. We'll take the backing off, and then we're going to apply it directly to the bottom of the rail. You just kind of want to slowly take the backing off as you go. Once we have it all the way on, we'll go back and we're going to press it down and make sure it adheres all the way. We'll repeat that for the other side of the rail and the other rail itself.At this point we're going to need to measure where we're going to put our rails.

We're going to hook the end of our tape measurer on the very back edge of the bed and we'll find the measurement in our instructions. I'm going to make several marks going across the bed so I can line my rail up. Next we're going to measure the width in between the wheel wells here so we can find our center point. Now you may want to go close to where you made your marks, make it a little bit easier on yourself. Once we measure it, we'll find the center point and mark that out.We're going to set out rail, we're going to set it in the truck bed so that the back edge closes to the tailgate lines up with those marks that we made. Now we're also going to want to line up the center hole with that center mark that we made as well. Now it's not a bad idea to go ahead and double check your side to side measurement. This way we just measure from the bed rail to the rail and make sure that measurement is the same. With our rail in position we're going to want to drill a pilot hole. We're going to be drilling both of the very outer holes as well as both the center holes. We're going to take about an 1/8 inch drill bit and we're going to go right down to the center and makr the location. I'm just going to drill a little bit so it leaves a mark. Then we can move the rail and drill all the way through.We're going to grab our frame brackets at this point and the flange that has the oblong holes on top. We're going to take some more of that plastic strip and we're going to go right over the mounting holes and just kind of wrap it around to make sure it sticks. We're going to do that on both sides of the bracket. We'll do that for the other bracket as well. Now since we're on the driver's side we're going to grab the drivers bracket. It has a D on it. The passenger side will have a P. We're going to take our bracket, you want to make sure this tab towards the back with the single hole is on the back side of this hat channel here. We'll lift it up and you can see how those two holes are going to line up. Now in each one of the holes we're going to take one of our 5/8 bolts and a flat washer and go through our bracket and all the way through the frame.Where the bolts came through the frame we're going to take a conical tooth washer, you want to make sure the teeth are going to be facing towards the frame, slide it over the bolt, and then we're going to secure it with a hex nut. Now at this point we just want to get this kind of snug. We don't really want to tighten it down too much. We're going to do that for the other one as well. The other side bracket is going to go on the same way with the same combination of hardware.Now that both the brackets are in place you want to make sure that the pilot hole that we drilled is lined up with the bracket underneath. Once that is lined up, we're going to come back and we're going to enlarge all of our pilot holes to a 9/16 except the one that's closest to the cab in the center. We're going to leave that one alone for right now. For the center hole that is closest to the cab we're going to grab the drill bit that we used for our pilot hole and we're going to go through except this time the hole is going to be in to the hat channel. We want to drill all the way through it. Now that we have the hole going all the way through the hat channel we're going to come back with a 1-1/8 hole saw and we're going to go through, but we're only going to be going through the bed of the truck.Now with the hole drilled through the bed we can clearly see the hole that's going through the hat channel. We're going to need to enlarge that to a 9/16 just like we did with all the other holes. Now everywhere we drilled we're going to come back with some clear spray paint because it's never a good idea to leave exposed metal on your truck. Now we're going to take the spacer, we're going to put it inside the hole we drilled, so it's going through the hat channel and that the holes line up. You want to make sure you have that plastic covering on the side that's going to be facing towards the bed. On one of our thicker spacer blocks, we're going to put it over the hole that's towards the tailgate. We'll take another one and we're going to place that right over the hole that we drilled with our spacer inside the hat channel.We can take our rail and we're going to line it up with the holes. You may have to move the blocks a little bit to get everything to line up. Make sure all the other holes line up, and then we can start putting in our hardware. The hole in the center towards the cab, we're going to take our long carriage bolts. It's going to go through the rail and go all through that spacer and through the hat channel until it engages that square. The hole towards the tailgate we're going to take another carriage bolt, but it's going to be one of the shorter ones in our kit. It may help if you kind of lift up on the rail. That way we can everything to line up where it needs to be and get that bolt to pass through.Now the bolts towards the cab on the end we're going to be using a hex bolt with a lock washer attached to it. Again, we're going to pass it all the way down through the rail and through the bed. Then finally for the last hole we're going to take another one of our smaller carriage bolts, line it up, and make sure it goes all the way through engaging that square. For both the center bolts we're going to take one of our thinner spacer blocks, and again making sure you have that plastic coating on there facing towards the bed, slide that over the bolt. Take a conical tooth washer, and then secure it down with a hex nut.Now for the bolt that's coming through the bracket towards the tailgate you'll notice that there's going to be a small gap right here. We're going to want to take two of the U shaped spacer blocks. The top one you want to make sure has that isolator strip on it because it's going to be touching the bed. We're going to place those above the bracket so that it's going to be going around the bolt. Push those in place so that it has something to support it whenever we fully attach it. Then we'll take a conical tooth washer making sure the teeth are facing up towards the bracket and we'll secure it with a 1/2 inch hex nut. The other side is going to secure the same way using the same hardware.Now for the bolt that passes through the hat channel you're going to want to grab an extra set of hands so they can be in the bed. Take one of the thicker spacer blocks and make sure it has that plastic isolator on there. Then we're going to grab a handle nut. The easiest way I've found is if we actually take our handle nut and kind of get it close to lined up with our spacer block. We're going to feed it into the hat channel until we can get it lined up with the bolt and lift up. Then have our assistant in the bed turn the nut so we can get it started. Once we have it started and we start tightening it up it will trap that handle nut against the hat channel so we can just focus on tightening the bolt in the bed.To get the proper spacing for our forward rail, or the rail that's going to be closes to the cab, we went ahead and put out assembled fifth wheel in place. We're going to use that as a template to put our other rail down. We'll get it close, and then we'll lift up on the leg and slide everything in place. Now once the legs are in all the rails, you want to make sure that it's a snug fit so you're going to push that forward rail towards the back one. Then we'll double check our measurements to make sure it's square in the truck bed.Now we're going to do the same thing we did with our rear rail. We're going to take a small bit and we're going to drill the two outer holes on both sides, and then one closest to the cab in the center. With the pilot holes drilled out we're going to go ahead and lift the fifth wheel up so we can slide the rail out of the way. Then we're going to enlarge all of them to that 9/16. Just like the other rail we're going to take one of our thick spacer blocks with the plastic coating on it and place it right over that center hole. Then we can reinstall the rail. We'll just get it somewhat close, lift up on our fifth wheel, and slide everything in place. Double check that everything is lined up. You can see that our spacer block moved so we're going to have to push that back to where it's underneath our rail here.Once we have everything lined up, we'll take one of our carriage bolts. We're going to pass it through the rail, through that spacer block, and then down to the bottom of the truck. It may take a little bit of wiggling everything around to get everything to line up. Then we're going to repeat that. We're also going to use the carriage bolts but with no spacer around the edge in the other four locations. When we're securing everything on the bottom we're going to be using the same combination of hardware that we did for the other rails. In the center we're going to use that large spacer block, conical tooth washer, and nut. Then for the plates on the side you want to come from the inside of the frame and put those two U shaped spacers underneath. Then again attach it with a conical tooth washer and a hex nut. We'll repeat that for all the remaining locations.With everything in place we can go ahead and tighten down our hardware. For the 1/2 inch hardware we're going to be using a 3/4 inch socket. To tighten up our frame bolts I'm going to use a 15/16 socket and hold the nut on the inside of the frame with a 15/16 wrench. Now I'm going to come back with a torque wrench and I'm going to torque all my hardware down. However, when we do we want to make sure we torque down the bolts that are attaching the rails to the brackets and then go back and torque the brackets to the frame.That will finish up your look at a Reese Quick Install Custom Installation Kit with Base Rails for fifth wheel trailer hitches, part number RP50074-58 on our 2018 Ford F-250 Super Duty.