Trailer Hitch Installation - 2008 Ford Taurus X
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How to Install a Trailer Hitch on a 2008 Ford Taurus X
Today on this 2008 Ford Taurus X, we will be installing Draw-Tite hitch part number 75299. Okay, the first thing we want to do is to go ahead and over here on the driver side frame rail, lower the exhaust down off of its hanger. What we are going to do is simply unbolt the hanger off of the frame rail here by removing these two bolts here. We are going to go ahead and fully remove the hanger here off of the rubber hanger on the exhaust. So to do that I am just going to simply spray the stud down here with a spray lubricant like a WD-40. If it is easy enough, you can just pull it off by hand. If we take a look up here at the driver side frame rail, you can see we have got the two existing weld nuts where we just removed the hanger from.
Those are going to provide two of the attaching points for the trailer hitch. And then we have got the oblong hole here just forward of those weld nuts. That is going to provide a third attaching point. We are actually going to be fishing the carriage bolt and block up through the access hole here at the end of the frame rail. And we will be feeding that into the frame, pulling it down through the hole. And then there is also a fourth attaching point here on the side of the frame through this existing hole. We are going to go ahead and fish the carriage bolt and block into the frame over here on the driver side by using the 1/ 2 inch bolt leader that is provided in our installation kit.
And what we want to do is take the threaded end here, feed it through the bottom of the hole that we are going to be pulling the bolt through, and feed it through the frame and out the access hole. We will next take the block and feed it on to the bolt leader. And then we will take our carriage bolt and wrap the bolt leader around the thread of the carriage bolt. We will just take the other end and pull them both through the frame and into place. Okay, and then we are also going to partially put in place the other carriage bolt and block assembly. You will note that the block that we are using here on the side of the frame is smaller than the one we used at the bottom of the frame. We will go ahead and put the block on to the bolt leader and thread the carriage bolt on. What we want to do is just feed it into the access hole but we do not want to actually pull it into to place just yet. So we are going to have it kind of just sitting in there with our bolt leader sticking out.
Then over here on the passenger side, we have got three holes here. Two at the bottom and one here on the side of the frame. These are weld nuts but there are not any existing threads in them as of yet. What we are going to be using are these 12 millimeter form threading bolts. And what we will do is just go ahead and thread them into these weld nuts and they actually form the threads for you. And again what we want to do is basically take this curved loop off of the hanger. I am going to take a cutting wheel or a grinder and just go ahead and chop it off right about here. Okay, we are going to go ahead and put the hitch up into position now. You do want to make sure that the hitch over here on the driver side goes up and over the exhaust. We want to make sure that we add the conical tooth washer to the 12 millimeter form threading bolt here. We just kind of want to leave these loose until we get all of the bolts into place, then we can tighten them up fully. What we want to do is go ahead and take our bolt leader and slide it through the hole on the hitch where it is going to attach to the side of the frame. And then I am going to just go ahead and attach to the carriage bolt here at the bottom of the frame. And again we want to leave this one loose until we get everything in place.
We can go ahead and go back over to the side of the frame and finalize the pulling through of the carriage bolt. We will again be using a conical tooth washer and hex nut for these fasteners on the side of the frame. And then next, I am going to reattach the exhaust hanger onto the rubber boot on the exhaust itself. We will be attaching the hanger to the weld nuts there at the bottom of the frame using the new eight millimeter bolts. We are also going to be putting a spacer block in between the exhaust hanger and the hitch like so. Okay, now we can go through and start torquing our bolts down. You want to check with the directions to verify the appropriate torque ratings for each individual bolt. I recommend torquing the three on the passenger side first and then we will come back through and do the two carriage bolts on the driver side, and then finish with the two weld nuts at the bottom of the frame. This will conclude the installation of hitch part number 75299 on a 2008 Ford Taurus X.
Info for this part was:
Video Edited:
Zack K
Video Edited:
Chris R
Test Fit:
Hayden R
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