Hitched

We picked up the trailer hitch for the truck yesterday. I got it installed today since I was off. It rained all day. The mud is still bad and there is water standing in the yard. I think the drought is over.


We got the Class 4 Reese Farm and Ranch Multi-fit Receiver Hitch. The Class 3 probably would have been enough but more is always better.

I backed into the garage/hay barn so I wouldn't have to roll around in the mud and horse feces. The first step was to remove the bolt from the frame that holds the bumper on.


I reused the bumper bolt so I wouldn't have to drill out the weld-nut on the frame. The ¼-inch bolt plate wouldn't have fit in there anyway so I decided the bumper bolt would do. I laid out all the parts to make sure everything was there. There were extra parts when I was done. This is a result of the multi-fit nature of the installation. I hope.

The directions described the hitch and the parts but really didn't say much about the truck. It wasn't rocket science so I got it figured out. The big bolts went in the big holes. Can you guess where the small bolts went? The directions did say to leave everything loose until you had them in place then tighten.

Here I am tightening the bolts on the passenger side. It would have been easier if I had dropped the exhaust and removed the spare tire. It would have been easier if I had air tools and a car lift too. I just kind of bent the exhaust pipe out of the way and used a shorter 15/16 wrench. They said to tighten to 117 ft-pounds and 97 ft-pounds. I have a torque wrench but it only goes to 75 pounds. So I just tightened the begeesus out of them all. After the first couple of tows I'll re-tighten everything.

All done. This will be the last time it's clean and shiny.