Curt Custom Base Plate Kit - Removable Arms

Video Transcript for Curt Custom Base Plate Kit Installation - 2021 Ford Ranger

Hey everybody, Ryan here at etrailer. Today, on our 2021 Ford Ranger, we're gonna be taking a look at and showing you how to install the CURT base plate kit. But before we do that, why don't we, kinda just run through the five main components that we're gonna need to actually pull our Ranger down the road. The first one, is indeed, going to be the base plate. All right, and that's gonna provide us with a solid and reliable connection point. That way, we can hook our tow bar up to it.

And this tow bar is gonna be the second component. And this is gonna be the physical link that actually connects the front of your Ranger to the back of your RV. The third main component is going to be safety cables, and these are pretty straightforward. You know, these are there in the event of an unlikely disconnect. These are gonna keep everything connected together.

The fourth main component is going to be tow bar wiring. And what this is gonna do is transfer the lighting signals from the back of your motorhome to the back of your truck, not only keeping you safe, but legal as well. And last but not least, the fifth main component is going to be a braking system. And what this is gonna do is apply the brakes in your Ford whenever you hit the brakes in your motorhome, helping to bring you to a more complete and predictable stop. So, this is what the base plate's gonna look like whenever you're not using it, whenever you're not hooked up.

So, if you're just kinda cruising around town or run into the store, whatever the case may be. And honestly, I think it looks really good. You know, it's, you can hardly even notice it. The base plate just takes place or replaces more or less, the original factory tow hooks. So, right from the get go, you already had something here, and the base plate, kinda just took place of it.

So, it really does do a great job, it just kinda blending in. One thing I am a big fan of is the finish. CURT's finish is a little bit thicker usually, generally speaking, and kinda holds up a little bit better, at least in my opinion. So, that's good there. And what's kinda cool is too, they're also gonna give you some plugs or some covers. That way, when you're not using it, we'll put these in. Not only is it gonna just clean up the look a little bit, but it's also gonna help prevent, you know, dirt and moisture and everything else from getting inside our base plate and kinda gumming it up. Now, even though the base plate looks really good, we're not gonna have to sacrifice the usability of it. It's still gonna be super simple. And honestly, in my opinion, that's one of the most important things with the flat tow setup, is that simplicity. You want everything to go smoothly and operate as it should. With that said, when you're ready to use it, all you're gonna have to do is pull those caps out, we're gonna take our removable arms. And so, you're gonna put these in, all right, and rotate it about a quarter turn until this pin locks into place. To get the other side on, is you'll simply just do that same exact thing. So, whenever you're actually ready to hook your tow bar up, it's gonna be just as simple. So, I went ahead and got our wiring and everything else hooked up. And all you're gonna have to do, these are pretty much as quick connects, all right. So, you'll line that up, pin it through. Keep it on that side. Safety chain openings, super easy to get to. And that's really all there is to it. So, not a whole lot of parts to figure out or anything like that. Now, with that side, you know, what's great, this base plate's gonna work with a lot of different tow bars. So, in our case today, we have a Roadmaster tow bar with the Blue Ox-style ends. Many different Blue Ox tow bars will work with the base plate. Of course, the CURT tow bars will pair right up, and as well as many others. So, your options are really open. And even if you have a tow bar that doesn't pair directly up to it, chances are pretty good that there's an adapter available that will allow that tow bar to work with your base plate. So, at the end of the day, a nice base plate you really can't go wrong with, you know. I've had good luck in the past with all the CURT products, they're really well-built. So, not only does this look good, it's gonna hold up well, and most importantly, it's going to be easy to operate and use. Now, as far as the installation goes, really can't get much more simple. I've had some base plates in the past that are really difficult. I have to take a ton of stuff off, and that's not the case at all with these. Essentially, you just remove your tow hooks, and the base plate, kinda just bolts right up, so it shouldn't really give you too many issues at all. Speaking of which, let's go ahead, pull them to the garage and put it on together now. To begin our installation, we're gonna be underneath the front of our Ranger, and what we need to do is remove this skid plate. So, we're gonna have four bolts holding it up, one in each corner. So, one there, one over here, and they're gonna have a 15 millimeter head. So, go ahead and pull these front ones out first. With those removed, we can lower down our skid plate and set it to the side. So now, if we move to our tow hooks, we're gonna have these rubber covers that are around them, and we need to get those removed. These, you can kinda just work out. Slide them off. We'll set them to the side. And I want to mention, any thing we do to one side of the vehicle from this point on, we're also gonna do to the other side, 'cause it'll be set up the same way. What we can do now is remove this plastic deflector. By doing this, it's just gonna make everything a lot easier to see and get to, whenever we're putting the base plate on. So, to get this off, we have three bolts here in the front. Take a 10 millimeter and pull them out. And once these are removed, you can kinda pull down on this, and that's gonna expose a couple more bolts above it there. Looks like we're gonna have a total of three bolts. Again, we'll grab a 10 millimeter and get those removed. Then, on each side of our vehicle, we're gonna have three more fasteners. So, one there, one there. And then, one's kinda buried up here in this, in this corner here, right behind our rear wheel. It's a little tricky to see, but it is up there. And they're all gonna have a 10 millimeter head. So, here's a different look at that one there in the corner. So, once they're all loose, you can work this out from underneath of our vehicle. At this point, we need to remove our tow hooks. So, there's two bolts. Both are gonna have a 15 millimeter head. All right, lower these down, set them to the side. Now, let's go ahead and grab one of our side plates. So, you're gonna have two in the kit. They're each gonna be a little bit different. One of them is gonna be taller. And this is gonna be the one that goes on the driver's side. So, we're on the driver's side, and make sure you have the taller one, over here. With that said, this hole up here, what we're gonna do is take this half-inch bolt, conical tooth washer. Make sure the teeth on the washer are gonna face towards the side plate. And this opening is gonna face towards the back of the truck. Once you have it like that, we're gonna take a flat washer, put that over. And then, this is simply just going to get lifted up to the inside of our frame rail. You can see that factory hole, right there, the bolt is just simply just gonna get slid through that hole. So, if you look from the front, inside of the frame rail, you can see that bolt that we pushed through the frame, kinda sticking through, and what we're gonna do to loosely secure this, is take one of the handle nuts. And all of the hardware that we're gonna use to secure the base plate, I'm gonna put on some Loctite. You can pick some of this up here at etrailer. Just put some Loctite on the threads there. And the way it's gonna work is that handle nut, it's gonna go inside of the frame, and line it up with that bolt, and get it started. So, we're just gonna leave it, kinda hand tight for now. So, you can still move the side plate a little bit. And once he got it, just about like that, you can take the handle nut, and you wanna bend this, kind of flat. Try to push it back as much as you can. That way, it doesn't interfere with our base plate when we put that up. Now, we can grab our base plate, and you wanna make sure you have this positioned correctly. So, this is gonna sit up, like so. You want the tow hook, the little tab here, to face towards the center of the truck and to be facing up as well. So, with that said, we're gonna be using these square holes here, and these will line up with our side plate. And what we're gonna do to get some hardware in there is take the included fish wire and take the coiled end, push it through. I'm gonna grab one of the carriage bolts, thread that onto the fish wire. And you kinda feed that back in and get it to pull out there. Same deal with this one here. And what you're gonna do is take, and what you're gonna do is take the end of the fish wire, run it through the appropriate hole in the side plate. Kinda get it lined up, and you should be able to pull your bolts to your left side. So, with bolts through, you can remove the pull wire. Put some Loctite on the threads there. And we're gonna take a flange nut, and get that started. You can kinda hold that bolt steady with your finger a little bit, makes it easier to get the nut going. We're gonna get both of these nuts hand tight for now. Now, we can grab these two bolts. Again, putting on conical tooth washers facing up, towards the base plate. These are gonna run through these two holes and line up with the factory-weld nuts that we're in the frame, that we're used to originally hold on our tow hooks. So, go ahead and kinda get everything lined up. Again, just starting these, hand tight. With all the hardware in place, we can snug it down. You wanna do this in a particular order, you wanna start with these smaller bolts first. And you wanna do this, so everything kinda draws together evenly. Again, we're just gonna get them snug. Once it's snug, we can use that same tightening procedure to come back and torque all of the bolts. So, I went ahead, repeated that same process, over here in the passenger's side to get this base plate on. This how it turned out, setup the same exact way. But then, what you're gonna do on each side of your vehicle is take the included safety cable, wrap it around the frame. And then, connect it to that attachment point there on our side plate. So, I just used the included D-ring. And then, what I like to do is take some zip ties and just kinda zip tie everything together. That way, it's not gonna bounce around and kinda make a bunch of noise whenever you're going down the road, hitting and bouncing, stuff like that. So, at this point, your base plate is completely installed. What you could do is just re-install the plastic air shield, as well as the skid plate. You just put those on the opposite way that you removed them. What I'm gonna do is wait to do that. And that's because I'm gonna use this little bit of extra space that we have under here, to make it a little bit easier to install some of our other flat tow components, like a braking system and tow bar wiring. That way, we have the extra space if we need it. When we're done getting all those installed, then we can come back and reattach that plastic air dam, as well as the skid plate. And that'll finish up our look at and our installation of the CURT base plate kit, on our 2021 Ford Ranger..