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Under-Bed Rail and Installation Kit for Reese Elite Series 5th Wheel Trailer Hitches

39 reviews

Code: RP30868

Retail: $976.52

Price:  $544.47

• Fifth Wheel Installation Kit
• Custom
• Below the Bed

• Reese

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How to Install a Fifth Wheel Trailer Hitch on a 2012 Chevrolet Silverado

All right. Today on this 2012 Chevrolet Silverado, we're going to install Part Number RP30868 from Reese. It makes things a little easier, what we've done so far is go ahead and remove the wheels on the back axle. Next, we'll go ahead and remove the hitch shield that's underneath. We're going to remove a portion of the hitch shield. The portion we are going to remove will be starting from the shock tower on the passenger side.

We'll cut that off by the hatch channel right there and then we'll remove that section as far as we can all the way back to the spare tire storage area. Next step, we'll go ahead and loosen up the truck bed. We'll loosen up the bolts on the driver side and on the passenger side, we'll completely remove the bolts, so we can lift up the bed a little bit to install our hitch. Now, we can install the rails for the hitch. We'll take the first rail and position it between the hatch channel and the fuel tank.

It looks like that the wires are being really close to the rails when we let the bed back down. We'll take the wires and have to reverse their position on the truck bed, we'll do this on both sides of the truck bed. Then on the other side of the hatch channel, we'll install our second rail. Now, we'll leave the rails loosen on the bed for now, and then we'll go ahead and attach the frame brackets to the rails. We'll be using the 3-1/4 inch by 2 inch hex bolts, 3 1/4 inch conical tooth washers and the welded nuts spacer.

Now, when we install the conical tooth washer, we want to make sure the teeth are pointing up towards the hitch. Now, we've got our frame brackets installed on the passenger's side, we'll go ahead and repeat the same process over on the driver's side. Now, we'll go ahead and loosen and install a hardware for our frame brackets going to the frame. We'll use a 5-inch carriage bolts, 5/8 conical tooth washers, spacers, and the 5/8 nut. Now, we'll take a bolt leader that comes with the kit.

We'll push it through the hole that we're going to use and then, out of the access hole on the other side of the frame. We'll throw on a spacer, and then throw in a bolt, and then pull through the hole, then we'll install our conical tooth washer and nut. We'll leave everything loose for now. (Repeat Three More Times) Now, we can go ahead and put the bed back down and re-install the bolts, then we can go ahead and into the bed and mark for the holes that we need to drill out. When we mark our holes, we'll measure from the edge of the congregation of the bed out, as described in the instructions and then we'll measure from the edge of the bed towards the front, again, as described in the instructions. In this case, from the edge of the congregation to the center of the truck, this would be 9-1/8 inches and then from the edge of the bed towards the front will be 36-5/16. Okay. That will be it for our first measurement and then we'll make our second mark which should be 13 inches off and also, it will be 9-1/8 inches from the bed congregation. Our driver's side is done. Now, I repeat the same process over on the passenger's side and also once you have all your holes marked, you want to double check, it should be 30 inches across from each other. Our holes marked out, we'll go ahead and drill out the pile of hole. We'll use a 1/18 inch bit and then, we'll go ahead and check it against our hitch. If we can line up our rails then we're good to go. We can go ahead and drill out the holes to a larger size. Now, before we drill out those holes, we'll loosen up those cross rails and move them out of our way. We'll drill our holes out to 3-1/4 inches. Here, we have our holes drilled, we can go ahead and re-install the rails to the frame brackets, and then we can go ahead and attach the pucks and the trim rings to the rails going to the bed of the truck. To install the pucks, first, we'll lay in place a 5/8 flat washer, and then our 5/8's lock washer, and the button head bolt. (Repeat Three More Times) We'll thread it into place and torque it down. (Repeat Three More Times) Okay. Now at this point, we can go ahead and install the hitch and this part number will be RP30143. We'll go ahead and put the hitch into place, and then we'll go ahead and lock it into place that'll hold the rails in place while we tighten down the hitch underneath the bed of the truck. We'll also install the head and the handle to the hitch while we're here. We'll go ahead and tighten the bolts for the frame brackets to the frame and then torque down the bolts for the frame brackets to the rails and then, we can go ahead and tighten down all the bolts that are attached to the bed of the truck. We've got our bolts torque down; now, we'll go ahead and install the wiring harness that comes with the hitch. First, we'll go ahead and find the location in the bed to install the wiring. We'll use a 2-1/8 inch bit and draw out our hole, and then we'll take our wire harness, run it through the hole; and now, towards the bottom, towards the factory 7-pole that's located on the factory hitch. We'll secure our wire harness with the included hardware. We will remove the wire harness going into the 7-pole connector. Your new harness will team between the two, and we disconnect the wire harness from the 7-pole with a small grey tab that would push down and release, that's the actual lock for the connector. Okay. We'll put the new wire harness in place, re-install the lock, take the other half and plug it back to the factory wire harness. All right. Now, we'll take the zip ties to zip tie the excess wiring. Our remains is go ahead and re-install the tires and we're finished. With that, that'll finish up our install Part Number RP30868 from Reese on our 2012 Chevrolet Silverado.