Trailer Hitch Installation - 2000 Nissan Pathfinder

How to Install a Trailer Hitch on a 2000 Nissan Pathfinder

Today we are going to be installing hitch part number 75077 from Draw-Tite on a 2000 Nissan Pathfinder. And this installation will also apply to the Hidden Hitch part number 70609. We are underneath the vehicle now, and I am going to go ahead and point out the mounting location for the trailer hitch. We are on the drivers side, the outboard side of the frame, and you can see there is a factory tow hook here. There is one of these on each side of the vehicle. The hitch is actually going to replace these tow hooks, so if you want to remove them - the bolts - they are holding the tow hook in place, and they need to be removed and come down. And clamped in here is also a fourth weld nut that we are going to use as the mounting location as well. It is toward the rear of the frame you will be able to see it once we get the tow hook removed. As you can also see, the small control box here on the drivers side is going to be in the way of me removing the bolts from the side of the frame and getting the hitch up into place. So we want to lower this down and out of the way as well. There are three bolts holding the box in place - one here on the outboard side, one here at the rear, and one here on the inboard side as well. So we are going to ahead and remove that first, and then remove the tow hooks from both sides of the vehicle.

OK, with those screws out I am going to go ahead and pull the canister down. On most of it I disconnect this side pipe here. This is just an extra exhaust that is just going to allow me to lower the canister. You definitely want to make sure you reconnect that, though, when the installation is complete. And again, now I am going to remove the three bolts per side that are holding the tow hooks in place. I am going to go ahead and lower those out of the way. As you can see here on the drivers side bracket that the wires fitting the tail light assembly are also attached to it. You want to make sure that you get that off as well, and that will allow you to fully lower the tow hook. And as you can see now with the tow hook removed, you can see the fourth mounting location for the hitch, just again toward the rear of the vehicle, way up high here. If you have an older vehicle, with that weld nut being exposed all the time, there is a good chance there is some corrosion built up in there, so it would be a good idea to spray that down with some spray lubricant like a WD-40. And you can clean it out real well with any kind of a wire brush or even a battery post cleaner would work for you anything you can get in there to get that corrosion out. So once you get those cleaned out, you want to go ahead and put the hitch up into position. You want to use the new hardware that comes with the installation kit. I am using a basic battery terminal cleaner to just get in there and scrub the corrosion.

OK, with all eight bolts loosely installed into the side of the hitch, we are going to go ahead and tighten them down now. I am going to go through and kind of snug them up with the air gun, and then we are going to go back and torque them down to their specified torque rating. And with those tightened down, I am going to go back through and torque each bolt down to its specified torque rating. You need to check your instructions to find the particular torque rating for each individual bolt. We want to make sure that we put our canister back up into place as well. And again, we want to make sure that we reconnect the exhaust pipe that we had removed earlier. With us having to remove this clip from the wire here, I am going to go ahead and zip-tie it into this other wire bundle right next to it so that it is not hanging loose. And then again, the wire harness here that we removed that fastener from the tow hook, I am going to go ahead and zip-tie this to this existing bundle here so that it is not hanging loose. I am going to go ahead and make sure we tighten these evenly. And with the canister back up into position, our installation is complete. The tow hooks will remain off the vehicle while the hitch is in place. You might want to save those in case you do remove the hitch, you can put the tow hooks back up into position. And this will conclude the installation of hitch part number 75077 on a 2000 Nissan Pathfinder.

OK, with all eight bolts loosely installed into the side of the hitch, we are going to go ahead and tighten them down now. I am going to go through and kind of snug them up with the air gun, and then we are going to go back and torque them down to their specified torque rating. And with those tightened down, I am going to back through and torque each bolt down to its specified torque rating. You need to check your instructions to find the particular torque rating for each individual bolt. We want to make sure we put the canister back up into place as well. And again, we want to make sure that we reconnect the exhaust pipe that we had removed earlier. With us having to remove this clip from the wire here, I am going to go ahead and zip-tie it to this other wire bundle right next to it so it is not hanging loose.

And then again, the wire harness here, that we had to remove that fastener from the tow hook, I am going to go ahead and zip-tie this, this existing bundle here, so it is not hanging loose. And then I am going to go ahead and tighten these evenly. OK, and with the canister back up into position, our installation is complete. The tow hooks will remain off the vehicle while the hitch is in place. You might want to save those in case you do remove the hitch you can put the tow hooks back up into position. And this will conclude the installation of hitch part number 75077 on a 2000 Nissan Pathfinder.