Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver - Custom Fit - Class III - 2"

Video Transcript for Curt Trailer Hitch Installation - 2017 Chrysler Pacifica

Hey everybody, how's it going Today we're gonna be going over, and showing you how to install, the Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver here on your 2017 Chrysler Pacifica. So, this is what our trailer hitch is gonna look like installed. As you can see, most of it is actually gonna be up behind the bumper facia here. So, it's gonna have a hidden design, which does two things. Number one, it's gonna provide us with a very factory-like appearance. And number two, it's gonna give us the best overall ground clearance, which is particularly important for these vans that sit lower to the ground, like the Pacifica.

So, if we take a closer look at the receiver tube, you're gonna see we have a nice black powder coated finish, as well as a rounded collar on the receiver tube. So again, it just gives us a better aesthetically pleasing appearance, and it's also gonna do a great job of help protecting our hitch from rust and corrosion, being that it's on the under side of the vehicle. So, adding a hitch to your Pacifica, is an excellent option. It's gonna make your vehicle that much more versatile. You can obviously use the trailer hitch for towing.

We can also use it for a bike rack, if we wanna hit the trails, or a cargo carrier if we just need to free up some space inside the vehicle. Now, we have plenty of these to choose from here at etrailer, so make sure to check out our selection. So, we're gonna have a class three rating here, with our trailer hitch. This is gonna provide us with a 4,000 pound gross trailer weight rating, which is the amount we can pull outward. Then we also have a 400 pound tongue weight rating, which is the downward force on the receiver tube.

Now keep in mind, for towing that particularly heavy trailer, we may wanna use a weight distribution system, and this trailer hitch is rated for those systems. And if we're using one, our capacities actually increase to 5,000 pounds and 500 pounds respectively. So, our receiver tube is gonna have the industry standard two inch by two inch. So, there's another standard size as well, which is 1 1/4. I definitely however, recommend going with the two inch, no matter if we're towing, or using bike racks or cargo carriers.

And the reason for this is, although we may not need the extra capacity, the larger opening is gonna give us a greater variety of bike, racks and cargo carriers to choose from. So, on the side of the receiver tube, we're gonna have a standard 5/8 inch diameter hitch pin hole. That will accept the standard 5/8 inch diameter hitch pin and clip. Keep in mind, these are gonna be sold separately. They don't actually come with the hitch. I will say that most bike racks and cargo carriers, do come with their own hitch pin. On the bottom of the receiver tube, we're gonna have our safety chain loops. Those will accept both the larger clevis style, as well as the smaller S type hooks. So, in regards to fit, we're installing this trailer hitch today on a base model. However, it will work with all other models as well, except for the hybrid. There is however, still a trailer hitch for the hybrid. It's just gonna be a different part number. So, now we have a couple of measurements for you. They're gonna help you when you're selecting your hitch mounted accessories. The first one I like to do for these low ground clearance vehicles, is the distance from the ground to the bottom edge of the receiver tube. That's gonna be 10 1/2 inches. And then I like to do from the ground to the top inside edge of the receiver tube. That measurement will be useful when you're selecting your ball mount. That way you can make sure you get the correct rise and drop to tow your trailer level. This one's gonna be right at 13 inches. And then finally, we have the distance from the center of the hitch pin hole to the outside edge of the bumper. This one's prettier accessed. We're gonna call that five inches. And the reason that measurement is useful, that way, when we're selecting our folding accessories, we can make sure that they don't contact the bumper, while they're in the folded position. So, in regards to installation, this one's pretty simple. You don't have to take the bumper off, or anything like that. You just have to do a few things, such as lowering the exhaust, removing a heat shield, and then we have to trim a couple of the underbody components as well. But aside from that, it's pretty straightforward. Let's go ahead and walk you through this now. So, the first step of our installation, we're gonna be removing this underbody panel here, underneath our van. Now, it's a pretty large panel, so there are gonna be several different types of fasteners securing this to the underside of the vehicle. So, we're gonna need a couple of different tools. We're gonna need a 10 millimeter socket, an eight millimeter socket, as well as a flat head screwdriver. So, we're gonna start now with our 10 millimeter. We're gonna remove these silver bolts here, on the outside of this panel. So, once we have all those bolts on the outside of the panel removed, we're gonna have two more here at the very back, and that'll be it for the silver bolts. Now we're gonna move on to our plastic nuts here. We have a couple on the outside, one on the inside. We'll remove these with a 10 millimeter socket. We have two more of these plastic nuts here, in the very back of our panel. And that should be the last of those. Now we're gonna switch over to our eight millimeter socket. We're gonna have these black bolts on the outside panel as well. We have a few more on the outside of the fender. So, now we're almost ready to remove the panel. We have these little plastic fasteners here. We'll turn those counter-clockwise to loosen those up. I don't believe they're gonna come out fully, but we have one here, and then one over here. Now we're gonna grab on to our panel. We have two little holes here. Probably just stick my finger in these, and just pull straight down. So, I have the panel most of the way down, however, we can't remove it completely, 'cause it looks like I actually missed a couple of screws inside on the driver's side there, attaching it to the wheel well. So we'll go ahead, and take our eight millimeter socket, go up in there, and remove those last three screws. So, now we can go ahead and remove our panel completely, and set it aside. So, the next thing we need to do, is we need to go ahead and lower our exhaust. So, we're gonna be breaking free the two rearmost isolators. There's one here, one back here. Before we do that, we wanna take some sort of strap or stand, to support the exhaust here. That way it doesn't fall too far down and become damaged. It's gonna use two points on the control arm here, with a cam buckle strap. Pull that tight to support it. Now, we're gonna take a spray lubricant. We're gonna spray down the rubber isolator, to make it easier to remove the hanger from. So, now we can go ahead and remove the hanger from the isolator. Now, you can use a pry bar if you have this, but we're gonna be using a specialized tool. So, now that we have the exhaust lowered, we're gonna be removing the heat shield. In order to do that, we're gonna have these plastic nuts, one here, one up above here. We'll take a 10 millimeter socket, and go ahead and get those out. So, you're gonna have to pull down on your exhaust over here, in order to reach that one above the muffler. Now we can pull this out and set it aside. So, now we're gonna take one of our pull wires or our fish wire here, whatever you wanna call it. We're gonna take the coiled end, we're gonna insert it through the circular hole, closest to the bumper. And we're actually gonna feed that all the way up to the access hole here. So, it maybe a little bit tricky to get the coil to come out there, but once we do have it through there, we wanna make sure we don't pull it too far, and pull the other end up into the frame. But, we'll take one of these smaller spacer blocks, and then thread on one of our carriage bolts. Then we can shove these spacer blocks through the frame, and there is our carriage bolt. So, now we'll repeat that same process for this hole here. So, now for this hole here, it's gonna be even easier. Place our spacer block over the coiled wire, just thread on our carriage bolt, and then we're gonna be using the reverse pull wire technique. We just place our carriage bolt up into the frame, slide our spacer block up through there, and then pull them both through. And now we'll just repeat that same process on the other side. So now we can go ahead. With an extra set of hands, lift our hitch up into position. Go ahead and place your fish wires through the correct holes first. You're gonna have to go up, over the exhaust on the passenger's side first. And then you should be able to lift the driver's side into position. We'll take one of our flange nuts here, and thread that on. So, if you can, try to pin your bolt against the frame on the hitch. That way, when you're threading on the nut, you don't risk pushing it back up and in. Now I'm gonna take a 19 millimeter socket. I'm just gonna secure the hitch to the vehicle using my impact here. And then we'll come back with a torque wrench and torque everything down to the specifications in our instructions. So, now we're ready to trim our heat shield. What we're gonna do, is we're gonna take a tape measure, we're gonna use the rearmost part here, of the heat shield, we're gonna measure up 11 inches, then we're gonna make our mark. Then what we're gonna do, is we're actually just gonna make a line and come straight across, and trim out that whole lower half. So, in order to trim this, we can just use a pair of tin snips. Really anything you have, a nice heavy duty pair of shears would probably work as well, or if you have a Dremel, that'll certainly work too. So, we're just gonna follow our line here and begin cutting all the way across. Now we can go ahead and discard this section. What I think I'm gonna do with this rough edge here, I'm gonna take a pair of pliers, and I'm just gonna fold that under slightly. That way we don't have to worry about any jagged edges. Now we've got our heat shield back into position, we're gonna be securing it with one of our plastic nuts. The other plastic nut that we removed above the muffler, is no longer there, because we actually remove that section of the heat shield. Therefore, we only need one nut to resecure it. So, now we're gonna take our underbody panel here. We need to trim this as well. Now, there's a great diagram in our instructions, but we're gonna go up six inches from the bottom of this tab, and then we're gonna come across 32 inches. So, we went ahead, and made our outline with a paint marker. Now we can again, take a set of sheers, some heavy-duty sheers, or some tin snips, or again, possibly a cutoff wheel. We'll go ahead and cut this section out here. So, before we resecure our panel, we wanna make sure that we go ahead, and raise our exhaust back up into position. So, keep in mind with our panel here, we did actually remove a few of the attachment points, so we won't be installing all of the hardware. We are gonna be leaving some out, just make sure you resecure everything with the available bolts. And that's gonna do it today for our look and installation of the Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver, here on your 2017 Chrysler Pacifica..