Trailer Hitch Installation - 2012 Nissan NV 3500 - Curt

Products Featured in this Video

Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver - Custom Fit - Class IV - 2"

28 reviews

Code: C14000

Retail: $426.76

Price:  $290.81

• Trailer Hitch
• Custom Fit Hitch
• Class IV
• 1000 lbs TW
• 10000 lbs GTW

• 12000 lbs WD GTW
• 2 Inch Hitch
• 1200 lbs WD TW
• Visible Cross Tube
• CURT

This fully welded trailer hitch receiver bolts onto your vehicle's frame with no welding required. Powder coated steel is sturdy and corrosion resistant.

Do you have a question about part C14000?more information >     

How to Install a Trailer Hitch on a 2012 Nissan NV 3500

Today on our 2012 Nissan NV3500 we're going to take a look at and show you how to install the Curt custom fit class IV trailer hitch receiver. This offers a 2 inch by 2 inch opening. It's part number is C14000. Here's what our hitch looks like installed. As you can see we're going to have a square tube with rounded edges, gives it a really nice, clean look and step back right back to our mounting locations. This is a class IV receiver hitch so we're going to have the 2 inch by 2 inch opening.

This is going to work out great for all of your hauling needs, towing needs, cargo carriers, bike racks. Whatever the situation is, they should fit in here as long as they're class III or class IV rated so they'll have that 2-inch shank. To secure them in place we're going to use a 5/8 diameter pinhole. You'll have enough room on each side for whatever class IV accessories you'd like use whether it's a anti-rattle bolt or hitch pin lock, whatever you've got there. We've got our safety chain connection points down here. As far as towing goes, we're going to have a 1000-pound tongue weight rating.

That's a maximum downward force we can put here at the receiver tube opening. We're going to have a gross trailer weight rating of 10,000 pounds. That's going to be the total of our trailer and then everything that we've got loaded up on it. If we go into a weight distribution set up, tongue weight goes up to 1200 pounds and the towing rating goes up to 12,000 pounds. Of course we do need to look into the owners manual of the Nissan to see what it's rated for and we'll go off of whichever of those numbers are the lowest. The positioning of the hitch is really nice. As you can see, it's got the flush front which I particularly like and if you we're to come up straight from there it's tucked just inside of the bumper.

As we're walking by and things like that we're not really going to have to worry about bumping our shin or our knee on it. A couple of measurements that you're going to find helpful in selecting your ball mount bike rack or even hitch cargo carrier will be from the ground to the inside top edge of the receiver tube opening. We've got about 17-1/4 inches. Then from the center of our hitch pin hole to the outermost edge of our bumper it's about 2-1/2. Let's take a quick look at our mounting locations before we get started. Now these are weld nuts that are already in the frame so we're just going to have bolts that go through our hitch into them.

We want to be sure to clean these out, make sure there's no debris or any buildup in those threads. We're just using a nylon tube brush here. This is part number 814092. If you don't already have one, just pick one up. We'll get this side cleaned out and we'll head over to the other side where we can do the exact same thing. Next we can bring the two short carriage bolts that we have and we need to slide them up, one on either side of where your ball mount would go if you we're doing a bumper mount. This is just going to slide in there and then we slide them all the way back as far as we can. There's going to be that little notch that's in the bottom side of the bumper here. It's going to keep those from spinning for us. Now with an extra set of hands we're going to get our hitch raised into position. We just want to align it with our weld nuts here on the bottom that we cleaned out and then we'll take one of our bolts. Now this is going to have a conical tooth washer. As you can see the teeth of that washer need to face up towards the hitch. Then we just want to get it started really well, five or six good turns. Then we'll just allow our hitch to rest there while we continue with our other three bolts. Now with all eight of those started, let's get the ones in the back started. These you just want to kind of gently touch the end of the bolt with your nut and then it'll grab the threads and you can thread it on there. Now we want to take a quick look, just want to make sure that we've got our hitch centered on the vehicle and we'll start tightening down our fasteners. Now we can take a quick look at our instructions, find the torque specifications and get all of our fasteners torqued down. With all of our fasteners torqued down to specification, that's going to complete today's installation of the Curt custom fit class IV trailer hitch receiver, part number C14000 on our 2012 Nissan MV3500. You could find this and everything else right here at etrailer.com. What's up, man .