Draw-Tite Max-Frame Trailer Hitch Receiver - Custom Fit - Class III - 2"

Video Transcript for Trailer Hitch Installation - 2016 Chevrolet Colorado- Draw-Tite

Today on our 2016 Chevrolet Colorado, we're going to be taking a look at and also showing you how to install the Draw-Tite custom fit class 3 trailer hitch receiver. Offering the 2 inch by 2 inch opening, it's part number is 75948. Now, this is what our hitch looks like installed. You'll see, we've got a drop-down on our round tube, we're going to see it right here in the middle. The rest of it's going to remain hidden up here, behind the bumper. Safety chain connection points here. You're going to see, of course, our receiver tube opening.

You're going to see, we've got a nice bracket that's been welded on. It offers 3 pre-drilled holes, that's going to allow us to attach wiring here at the rear of the vehicle, if you don't already have the existing tow package. Now, this being a class 3 hitch, it's going to work out really well for just about any hitch mounted accessory. There's usually always a class 3 option available, whether it's going to be a bike rack, cargo carrier, ball mount, should work out in here just fine. You will notice our receiver tube, it has 2 holes in it. The one located here, closest to the front of the vehicle, is the one we're going to use to secure all of our items with.

It's 5/8ths of an inch in diameter. You want to use class 3 accessories. As you can see, there's a good open space so whether you're using a standard hitch pin and clip, locking hitch pin, or even anti-rattle bolt, it shouldn't have any issues fitting in there and being installed. One of those options is a j-pin stabilization system, that's the only time that you're going to use this smaller hole closer to the rear. Now, this being a class 3 hitch, it's nice and sturdy. It's going to offer an 800 pound tongue weight rating, so that's the maximum downward force that we can put here at our receiver tube opening. It gives us a 6,000 pound gross trailer weight rating.

That will be the total weight of our trailer, and anything that we we're load up on it. If we go into a weight distribution set-up, our tongue weight stays the same at the 800 pounds, but the gross trailer weight rating, that goes up to 8,000. Now, you will want to look in the owner's manual on the Colorado. You want to figure out what it's rated for, and then go off of whichever of those numbers is the lowest. Now, a couple measurements that you'll find helpful in selecting your ball mount, bike racks, or hitch cargo carriers, will be from the ground to the inside top edge of our receiver tube opening. We've got about 19 and a quarter inches.

Then, from the center of our hitch pin hole to the outer most edge of our bumper, we've got about 2 and a quarter. The first step's going to be for us to lower our spare tire down and out of position. Now, our next step is going to be removing the cross member that comes across here, where our ball mount would go if we we're going bumper tow something there. We want to give some support to our bumper on each side here. The same bolts that hold up this cross member, also hold our bumper into place. You can see here that I've used a pole jack on each side in the flat spot on our bumper. You could also do that with a set of jack stands to get it up and support it. Then, I'm going to go around the metal that's right behind the license plate, and I want that go to pretty much straight back. I'm going to connect it to this cross member that holds up our spare tire. What that's going to do is pull our bumper in towards the vehicle, so we won't have to worry about it moving, and then we've got each side support and so we won't have to worry about it coming down. Now we want to use our 13mm socket. We're going to pull out the 2 bolts located here at the rear, and the 2 here in the front on our space tire cradle. We'll return that to our customer, since we won't be re-installing it. Now, on each side, we're going to have 4 bolts that we need to remove. We've got the 2 located here in the bottom of our frame rail, here and here. Then right up here on the outside of the frame rail, we've got one here, and then one a little bit higher and closer to the rear of the vehicle. You'll see now, that bumper's got a little bit of wiggle to it. That's why we've got these supports here. You see how that's just going to kind of tip down there, we're using those 2 rear bolts for support. We'll just pull those out, and pull it down and out of the way. As we bring this down, we'll want to remove the little fastener that holds in the wire loom 00:04:37 here on the driver's side. Now, we'll return our bumper support to our customer, in case they ever decide to remove the hitch, they'll want to put that back in place. We're going to replace our bolts on the side here. What we want to do is slide a flat washer right down in between the outer bumper bracket, and our frame. That's going to act as a spacer from where we took that cross beam out. With the help of an extra set of hands, we're ready to get our hitch raised up into position. We're going to use our new hardware. You can see we've got a locking washer on there, and a flat washer. We'll bring it right up to our frame rail. We're going to get these threaded in. Once we have one on each side started, with about 4 or 5 good turns, we should be able to let our hitch rest there while we get our other one started. Now, we'll get these all snugged down. All right, now it's time to look in our instructions, there we'll find our torque specifications. We're going to go around to all of our fasteners, including the ones on the side, and make sure we get them torqued down properly. All right, now with those all torqued down to specification, we're going to get our jack stands out of the way here, remove our strap. We'll get our spare tire back into position, and our hitch is going to be ready for use. That's going to complete our installation of the Draw-Tite custom fit class 3 trailer hitch receiver, part number 75948, on our 2016 Chevrolet Colorado.