Trailer Hitch Installation - 2006 Ford Freestyle
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How to Install a Trailer Hitch on a 2006 Ford Freestyle
Today on this 2006 Ford Freestyle we are going to install part number 87108 from Hidden Hitch. This also applies for part number 75299 from Draw-Tite. Our first step is to go ahead and lower the carbon canister. There are four bolts that hold this in place. One here, one back here that is hidden, and two on the bottom right here. Lets go ahead and lower it, it will stay on its own. Be careful with it. Now I have plenty of room to work on the frame rail right here.
We will also have to lower the exhaust to make room for the hitch also. There will a little bit of modification that needs to be done to the exhaust bracket too. We are going to take the metal hanger off the rubber hanger here and this part right here we are actually going to cut off with the grinder. We will go ahead and cut off this curved section right here, somewhere around an inch between the center of the hole to the end of the steel when we are done. All right now we can show you actually where the hitch will mount up onto the frame of the vehicle. It is going to mount up using this hole here, here, and on the side right here. And there are no threads or anything, but the kit comes with self threading bolts that basically cut away into that tube steel in the frame.
Basically all you have to do is take it, put it in there and get it started. Then just crank down by hand until you reach the proper torque. It is a good idea before you put the hitch on there is to run the bolt in and out just to give it some threads so you can hold the hitch up and just get it started. And on the passenger side it is a little different. The hitch is going to use this hole back here, and then it is going to use these two existing holes where the muffler bracket went and there will be holes in the frame to reattach the muffler bracket. And also, a hole on the side of the frame towards the rear of the vehicle. Okay now we will start fish wiring hardware in place. What we will do is run our fish wire tool that came with the kit, we will slide our block into place, run our bolt onto the bolt leader, push everything through, and pull our bolt leader back. Now we are going to do the same thing with the bolt that goes through the side of the frame, but we are going to leave the bolt leader in place. Do the same thing as before, run through the access hole, run our second block in, and notice the second block is shorter than the first one we put in. Then go ahead and thread the bolt in and push all of that into place inside the frame, and kind of work it around until you can pull it out just like that
Once you have it in position go ahead and push it back in, but leave the bolt leader in place because we will sneak the hitch on top of the bolt leader, thread it through, and pull the bolt back through the hitch. At this point we can start installing the hitch. This will require an extra set of hands to do that. What is going to happen is you are going to sneak the hitch over the exhaust, and what you can do is pull the exhaust down a little bit to sneak it over it. And then once you have that accomplished on the passenger side we can go ahead and start putting the bolts in there. All right we will go ahead and snug the bolt down to get it started, then we will go ahead and work on the other bolts. Again we are just getting these started and ran in halfway. We will tighten them up during our last steps. What we are going to do next is remember our wire leader here? We are going to take the bolt leader and put it through the hitch, and lets leave that alone for now.
And then lets go ahead and put the hitch up into position, that way the hitch is holding itself up now. Now we can easily install our hardware. Do the same that on the bolt that goes through the side of the frame too. Now we will go ahead and retrieve our exhaust bracket that we cut the end off. We will go ahead and reinstall it on the rubber hanger and bolt it back into place using the bolts that came with the kit. Then it is going to be bolt, spacer, and than hitch. Okay now we will go ahead and snug down theses bolts. All right will all the bolts snugged down we can go ahead and torque down the bolts as specified in the instructions. All right now we can put our carbon canister back up. Be careful the bolts that are in the frame come out pretty easy, so make sure you apply pressure towards the back and that way you will not knock the bolts loose. With your bolts torqued down, the exhaust back up, and the carbon canister reinstalled that will finish our install of part number 87108 from Hidden Hitch.
Info for this part was:
Video Edited:
Zack K
Video Edited:
Chris R
Test Fit:
Hayden R
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