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

Video Transcript for Draw-Tite Max-Frame Trailer Hitch Installation - 2019 GMC Canyon

Bob here at etrailer.com and today you're going to be taking a look at the draw tight class three custom fit trailer hitch receiver on our 2019 GMC Canyon. Now here's what our hitch is going to look like once we have it installed. The crosstube is going to sit right below the bumper, but the main thing we're going to see is that receiver tube sticking out. Now it's a class three so it is going to give us that two inch by two inch receiver tube opening and have the widest variety of options when it comes to accessories. If you want to hit the trail, we can put a bike rack in here, put a couple of bikes and we can take our friends with us. Or maybe we need to make more space inside of the bed or cabin of our truck.

Just put a cargo carrier back here.Maybe we need to get some elongated gear in the bed of our truck and we get a tailgate extender. Now the hitch is going to accept a standard five ACE pin and clip. These are not included with the kit, but you can find them here at etrailer.com. I know a lot of you may be wondering what that secondary hole towards the end of the receiver tube is for and that's actually for the J pin stabilization device. Now the way this is going to work, we're going to take the threaded hole and put it into the hitch pin hole and then we'll apply the nut on the other side.

As we tighten that nut up, that hook here is going to go into that secondary hole and it'll apply pressure to whatever we have mounted inside our hitch. That'll keep it nice and snug in there and it keeps it from rattling around making a lot of noise, but our J pin is also a locking device so it's going to keep all our accessories secure.Now again, this is going to be sold separately, but you can find it here at etrailer.com. Now if you are going to be towing a trailer, you're going to need a spot to hook up your safety chains regardless if that's a jet ski trailer or boat trailer, utility trailer for work or if you have a small pop-up camper. Either way we have to have somewhere to hook them up. We're going to have really large openings on the plate style here and even with these really big hooks, we still have plenty of room to get them on and off with ease.

The same thing can be said with the smaller hooks. Still have plenty of room to get it hooked on. As far as the weight rating goes for our hitch, our hitch is going to have an 800 pound tongue weight. That's going to be the maximum downward pressure at the end of the receiver tube.Put that in perspective, we're going to really be able to carry quite a bit of bikes with us, either four or five bikes on a bike rack or really maximize the carrying capacity of a cargo carrier. As far as the gross trailer weight rating goes, our hitch is going to have a 6,000 pound rating.

That's how much you can pull, but that does include the trailer and everything we have loaded on it. Now it is rated for use with weight distribution systems as well, which is going to be a separate component that's mounted on your trailer. The tongue weight is going to stay the same, but the gross trailer weight is going to bump up to 8,000 pounds. Now you do want to double check your GMC owner's manual because that is the rating for the hitch and we don't want to exceed the manufacturer's rating for our truck.I'd like to give you a few measurements and these are going to help you out whenever you're looking for accessories for your new hitch. Whether that be a ball mount, a bike rack, or even a cargo carrier. In the center of the hitch pin hole to the outermost edge of the bumper is right about three inches. That measurement is going to come in handy. To make sure that you can put those folding accessories in the upright position and they're not going to come in contact with the rear bumper. From the ground of the inside top edge of the receiver tube opening it's right about 19 and a half inches.That measurement is going to help you when you're looking for a ball mount so you can make sure you find the appropriate rise or drop so you can match it up to your trailer. Now that we've seen what our hitch looks like and gone over some of the features, let's walk through the installation together.To begin your installation you want to lower down your spare tire so we have a little bit more room to work underneath. If you've never lowered one down before, we're going to have a little door over on the passenger side of our rear bumper. Open up the door. You want to gather your spare tools from underneath the rear seat and we can put all the rods together and we're going to turn them counter-clockwise and that'll release this cable and lower down the spare tire. Now we can move underneath our truck. Now directly above where our spare tire was we're going to have this cradle and there's going to be four bolts holding it in place. We're going to grab a 13 millimeter socket and pull all four bolts out. Once we get all the hardware removed and this bracket, we want to hold onto it because we are going to reinstall it.Now the back of that bumper structure here where we just removed those bolts, we want to pull these units off. So just kind of take a flat blade screwdriver, kind of open them up a little bit and slide them off just like that. Now that cradle that we removed that was above our spare tire, we wanted to take those U nuts and the section that's going towards the rear of our truck, we're going to slide those U nuts in place. Just want to make sure that the nut section is facing up away from the spare tire. We can set this aside so we can reinstall it later. Now we need to remove the bumper beam that's behind our bumper here, but it's also attaching our bumper to our truck. So what we're going to do is we're going to take a couple of jack stands and put them underneath the corner of our bumper on each side.That way we don't have to worry about it falling down. Now since ours is on a lift, we're going to use a pole jack. If yours is on the ground, you could use a regular jack stand or whatever you have to hold your bumper in place. When we put our jacks underneath, we don't want a whole lot of pressure on it. We just want it there to hold it and support it. We don't need to lift the truck up. Now another thing I like to do just to make sure that I know my bumper's not going to move too much and they're supported, I put the jack stands to hold it up, but now I'm going to put a strap on each corner to pull the bumper towards the truck going towards the front.So I'm just going to find a section on the bumper itself to hook my strap to. I'm going to run the other end all the way down so I meet up with my axle here. I'll pull my strap nice and taut. That way I have pressure going up and towards the front. Now we come to our impact structure on the very end here we're going to add two bolts going vertically. We're going to remove those two bolts, so I'll grab a 21 millimeter socket and pull them out.We're going to remove the two bolts on the other side as well. Don't worry, the bumper still has a few more bolts holding it in place. So once we get the ones in the bottom removed, we're not going to have to worry about it falling. Now if we come to the side of our impact structure, we're actually going to have two more bolts holding them in place and that's actually going to sneak behind the bumper. So we want to grab our 21 millimeter socket and pull both of those out. Now I will mention that it is a little bit limited on space in here so you may have to use a hand ratchet and just to let you know these bolts are pretty tight so you want to get them loose and I like to leave one in on each side that we don't have to worry about it falling down, but get it pretty loose so we just have a couple of threads holding it in place.Now before we take that last bolt out and remove our impact structure, we're going to remove this clip that has some wiring attached to it so we don't have to worry about it. Just take a flat blade screwdriver, trim panel tool, whatever you have available. You just want to pull that clip out and move it out of the way so we can get the whole impact structure out. Now I'm going to take that last bolt out that I had in hand tight to help hold it and with an extra set of hands we're going to remove the impact structure. It's not that heavy, but it is a good idea to have an extra set of hands so we can very carefully remove it without moving the bumper too much. Now with the bumper structure out of the way, you'll notice that there's a small gap in between our frame and the bumper bracket.You want to grab the half inch flat washers out of our kit. There should be another set of flat washers, but they're just slightly bigger so you want to grab the smaller of the two, and this is actually going to go in between our frame and the bumper mounting plate and we want to reinstall the factory hardware. We're going to do that for all four mounting locations, two on each side. Then we'll come back with a 21 millimeter socket and tighten up all the bolts going into the frame on the side of our bumper here.Once you have your bumper bolts backed in, we're going to lift our hitch up, line it up with the holes around the bottom of the frame. We're going to take one of our new bolts, a lock washer, and a flat washer and go through our hitch and thread them directly into the frame. You want to get at least one bolt in on each side. That way the hitch will support itself. We don't have to worry about it falling down. The remaining holes are going to get the same combination of a new bolt, lock washer, and flat washer. We'll come back with the 22 millimeter socket and tighten up the hardware holding our hitch in place.You want to make sure you come back with a torque wrench. I'm going to torque all my hardware down to the specified amount in the instructions. We'll go back and repeat that for any remaining hardware we have. All of our hardware torqued down. We're going to grab that spare tire bracket. We're going to make sure we set it on top of our hitch on the backside here, make sure those U nuts are going through and we'll take our factory hardware and re-secure it. For now I'm just going to go real loosely and started. That way I know the bolts aren't going to cross thread and that they are going in place, but we'll get them all in before we tighten them down. We'll come back with that same 13 millimeter socket and tighten up all our hardware.Once you have all your hardware tight, we can lower down our support stance, move them out of the way, and we can also remove the straps that we had tied to our bumper. Now all we have left to do is put our spare tire back and that will finish up your installation and your look at the draw tight class three custom fit trailer hitch receiver on our 2019 GMC Canyon.