Reese Quick-Install Custom Bracket Kit for 5th Wheel Trailer Hitches

Video Transcript for Reese Quick-Install Custom Bracket Kit and Base Rails Installation - 2019 Ford F-250 Super Duty

Shane: Hi, I'm Shane with etrailer.com. Today, I'm going to walk you through how to install the Reese Universal Base Rails and a Quick Install Custom Bracket Kit on our 2019 Ford F250.This is what our base rails are going to look like in the bed of our truck. You can see they're really not going to take up a whole lot of space. They're only going to stick up about an inch and a half. So, they're really not going to come up too high. Not really going to interfere with anything.

Maybe you want to put plywood in here or some drywall. So, it's going to help us maintain plenty of bed access. Also, these base rails are going to work with many different fifth wheel hitches.You can see, here on the top, we're going to have different slots and those are for different weight ratings. These holes here, these are for your pins to go through to lock your fifth wheel hitches down into place onto the rails. These are going to be of steel construction, nice black powder coat finish that's really going to help resist any rust or corrosion.

As far as the installation goes, it's pretty simple and straightforward.When you combine it with the Reese Quick Install Custom Brackets, it makes these very easy to install. We're only going to have a few bolts in each rail that has to be put in from the top side through the bed. It's the only drilling that really has to be done. The rest of the hardware is mounted underneath through existing holes.As far as our custom brackets, again, steel construction, nice black powder coat finish, pre-drilled holes that are going to match up with the holes in the frame rail. So again, the only holes we're going to have two drills when we're installing our base rails, is the holes into the bed to match up with our frame rails.

Now, that we've gone over some of the features, let me walk you through how to get it installed.To begin your installation, it's a good idea to go ahead and remove your spare tire. Then, we're going to set our rails in the bed of our truck. We're going to start with the most rear rail. And what we need to do is we need to measure from this edge to the edge of our bed. And make sure it's the edge of the bed, not to tailgate.

We're going to do it per the instructions. And what I like to do is not just measure the center, I like to measure the ends and put a mark in the center on all three to make sure our rail is lined up evenly on both sides.So, we'll go from our rail per our instructions, 29 1/2-inches. I'm going a little bit extra because of the bed liner or the spray-in bed liner. About a 16th of an inch is probably good enough. So, now what we'll do is we'll go ahead and mark our rail side there. And then we'll go down to the other end and do the same thing. Go ahead and mark the center, let's see. Now, I'm going to take my marker, I'm going to mark right along the edge. That way if our bracket happens to move a little bit, we can always line it back up. That's going to be our straight line.And what we need to do is we need to get even measurement from our wheel well to this edge, wheel well to this edge on the same side, just to make sure the measurement is the same and the bracket is centered. About 3 3/4. Do the same thing on this side. We just want to make sure our measurement's the same. Now, what we're going to do is I'm going to mark my holes. We're going to be using the two outside holes, the two inside holes and the two outside holes on the other ends.Next, we're going to take a small drill bit, we're going to drill out the center of each of the holes that we just marked. Before you do any drilling it's a good idea to check underneath to make sure there's nothing in the way that's going to interfere with the drill bit. Next, we're going to take our frame brackets. They're already marked, D for driver, P for passenger. And they're going to be installed just like this on the outside of the frame rail.Before we do it, you're going to get some isolator strips because it's an aluminum bed, we need to put an isolator strip between this bracket and where it touches the bed of the vehicle. We'll just peel it off and it's going to be right on this top outer edge, just in front of the hole. And we're going to take this and we're just going to fold it over just like that.Now, we're going to do this, both rails on both ends. Same way, just like that. Now, we're going to take the 11 1/2-inch bolt, hex bolt. You can see it's got a shoulder on it. We're going to put a flat washer on it. We're going to have two of them. We're going to set our rail in place, or our bracket on the frame rail just like this. Line up the two holes in the frame rail with the frame bracket.We're going to take our bolt, we're going to slide it through. We're going to have one here, and we're going to have a forward one. On the inside, we're going to take a conical tooth washer, put it over the bolt, and then we're going to put on a nut and we're going to hand tighten it. We're going to do this on both sides of the vehicle. Now, what we want to do is we want to check the holes that we drilled for our rails on top.We want to check them and see if they align with the holes in our frame brackets. If they don't, you're going to pull your frame brackets off and adjust your holes to the way you need to. You can see ours are pretty lined up. So, we're going to go ahead and go up top and open our holes up to the correct size. Next, we're going to drill out our holes to the correct size. We're going to do these two holes, the center most rear one and then the two on the opposite side.We're going to take them up to a 9/16ths. You can use your 9/16ths drill bit. Or, what I like to use as a step bit. This center hole here, which is closer to the cab on our rear rail, we actually need to open that one up to an inch and an eighth. Keep in mind, we only want to open up the bed side to an inch and an eighth because it's going down into the hat channel. And then, we're going to have to insert this pipe spacer, but we're going to have to do that on the bottom.We're going to have to open the bottom of the hat channel to 9/16ths. Just like that. Before we insert that, we're going to clean up, up here. We'll vacuum up our shavings. And what I like to do is take a little bit of clear spray paint or black spray paint if you have it, and we're going to cover up this bare metal. If you don't have a spray-in bed liner, you're kit's going to come with some isolator strips like we put on the brackets down underneath. You're going to need to install those in between the plates and the bed.Once we open up our lower hole in our hat channel to 9/16ths. We're going to go ahead, drop in our pipe spacer. Slide our rale over the top. Line it up with our holes. Next, we're going to take our larger spacer blocks, going to look like this. I went ahead and put the isolator strip on there even though I said because we have a spray-in bed liner it wasn't necessary, but I'm going to go ahead and use it anyway just in case any of the bed liner around that whole kind of chips off over time. Just to help protect it. Keep it from corroding.We're going to slide it in that hole. Same thing with this one. Slide it through this hole. Small carriage bolt in the very rear, longer carriage bolt all the way down. And it's going to go through the hole in the hat channel. Just like that. Then for our outer holes, the two towards the tailgate, we're going to put in carriage bolts. The two inside, outer holes, we're going to use hex bolts.Next, on the underside, our two bolts that are coming down here, grab the long skinnier spacer block with a round hole in it. Make sure you put on the isolator. We're going to slide it up over our bolt. And it might be easier if have someone up top. Just kind of help hold that bolt down. Conical tooth washer, nut. We'll do the same thing for this one, except our plate is actually going to run this way, not across this way.Now, we're going to take two U-shaped spacer blocks. And you'll notice the gap from our frame rail bracket to our bed. Make sure you use an isolator sleeve on the top one that's going to be touching the bed. Once you get your U-shaped spacers in place on both sides, you're going to take a conical tooth washer, teeth facing the hitch. Then, you're going to put on a nut.In your hat channel, on the outside of your frame rail, you can see the backside bolt, the hex bolts that we dropped down through, that's where they're going to come out. What we're going to do is you're going to take a large spacer block. Again, put on your isolator. And you're going to have a nut plate like this. You're going to have somebody up top, you're going to take it and you're going to slide it in, line it up with the bolt and had somebody up top screw that bolt down into the nut plate.Once you have all your hardware installed for your rear bracket, you're going to go ahead and snug everything up. We're going to set our fifth wheel in place. We're actually going to use our fifth wheel to line up our rear bracket. Once you get it in, you want to make sure you're centered. So, measure from the sides of each wheel well to the edge of the bracket, centered up as needed.And then, for this one, we're drilling the outside two holes, same as we did on the most rear bracket. But we're only going to be drilling this center hole that's closest to the cab. And we're going to do it the same way. I'm going to use a small drill bit for the center of the hole. And then we'll open up our holes to the correct size. Again, it's going to be 9/16ths. Difference between our rear bracket and front bracket, again, we're only using this very forward center hole and we're only opening this one up to 9/16ths.And then, our center one where it drops in the corrugation, again, we want to use a larger block. Go ahead and put our isolator strip on there, and then, carriage bolt. And we're going to do the same thing underneath, two U-shaped spacer blocks, isolator sleeve, and we're going to slide it in between the frame bracket and the bed of the vehicle. Want to make sure we're going around both bolts.Once you get all of your hardware installed for your front bracket, go ahead and snug everything up. And then we're going to tighten and torque all of our hardware to the specifications in the instructions. Once you have all of your hardware tagged and torqued to the specification in the instructions, you're ready to go.Again, I'm Shane with etrailer.com. I hope this video has helped you, whether you're still deciding or installing the Reese Universal Base Rails and Quick Install Custom Brackets on our 2019 Ford F250.