Roadmaster Direct-Connect Base Plate Kit - Removable Arms

Video Transcript for Roadmaster Direct-Connect Base Plate Kit Installation - 2014 Ford Fusion

Shane: Hi, I'm Shane with etrailer.com. Today we're gonna be taking a look at . I'm gonna show you how to install Roadmaster's direct connect base plate kit on our 2014 Ford Fusion. It's gonna be one of the seven components required to flat-tow your vehicle. Let's go over those components now.One, is gonna be our base plate. It's gonna connect directly to the chassis of the vehicle, to give you that solid attachment point for your tow bar.

Second is gonna be your tow bar. It's gonna give you that solid connection point between your base plate on your towed vehicle and your RV. Third is gonna be your safety cables. These are gonna be a secondary safety device, in case your tow bar happens to fail. Fourth is gonna be your braking system.

Braking system is mounted inside the vehicle, and it's gonna allow you to apply the brakes in the vehicle, while it's being flat-towed, rather than having to depend on the RV to stop both vehicles. Next is gonna be our wiring. Our wiring is gonna allow us to transfer all of our light signals from our RV to our vehicle while it's being flat-towed, so that we're safe.Our sixth component is gonna be a battery charge line. It's gonna allow us to charge our battery while we're flat-towing the vehicle, because our braking system requires a power source to work. Our seventh component is gonna be a brake light relay.

Because this vehicle, when the key is in the off position, and you push on the brake, the brake lights come on, we don't want that signal to override our turn signal, when we're flat-towing it. The relay is gonna separate that wire, so we're only getting the wire functions, or the lighting functions, from the RV.I, in my opinion, I would want to look very clean on the front of the vehicle. Some base plates, the safety chain loops are gonna stick out a little bit farther, where your removable arms feed into the base plate, they're gonna stick out a little bit. With this base plate, when you remove your arms when you're not using, or not flat-towing your vehicle, you can see here that there's barely anything sticking out. So it really, really looks good on the front of this vehicle.Another great feature about this base plate is the removable arms.

When we're not flat-towing our vehicle, we remove the arm, we can store these in our RV so we're ready to use them next time. They're easy to put on, easy to take off. We're gonna have a spring-loaded pin here, that all you have to do, is you push it in, until that pin collapses, you twist it, and it locks into place. And then to take it off, you simply pull the ring, twist it back, and you slide them out.Now as far as the durability on this base plate. As I mentioned before, it's gonna attach to the chassis of the vehicle, so we know we're gonna have a solid connection point there. It's gonna be a black powder-coated steel. So it's gonna be very durable. The welds on it, they're very thick. We're not gonna have to worry, when we're flat-towing our vehicle behind our RV, 'cause we know our base plate is gonna hold up the way we want it to. And our base plate is only gonna work with Roadmaster tow bars that are hitch-mounted. It will not work with tow bars that are ball-mounted.Now that we've gone over some of the features, we'll show you how to get it installed. We're gonna start with this panel, right here underneath our hood. We're gonna have some push pin fasteners we need to remove. You can use trim panel tool, you can use your flat head screwdriver. We're gonna pull up the center, and then we wanna pull the base out too. So if they come separated, no big deal. You can always put them back together after you get it out. We're gonna have several of these that hold this panel down.Then we're gonna set this panel aside for now. We're gonna have another push pin fastener here, three T25 Torx head bolts here, and another fastener here. Remove those.In each wheel well you're gonna have three fasteners that look like this. You're just gonna turn them, unscrew them, and then you're gonna pull the fastener and the base out.Next, we'll take a 7 mm socket. Underneath the vehicle, right in front of each wheel, you're gonna have two 7 mm head bolts, and then right across the bottom side of the fascia, you're gonna have some 7 mm bolts. We need to remove all of those, all the way over to the other side of the vehicle.We're gonna take a T30 Torx bit, we're gonna have a bolt here, here, here, here, right across the front, and then these right here that are holding on the back of this panel. We're gonna need to remove this, also.Then we'll pull our panel down. We're gonna set this aside for now. Next we're gonna reach up, and if you have fog lights, we need to unplug those before removing our fascia. This plug right here, we're just gonna push on the black tab, and we'll pull out. And make sure you look on the other side of the vehicle, to make sure there's no wiring or plugs that you need to remove over there.We're gonna go ahead and start pulling off our fascia. You just wanna make sure, when we pull it off, we pull it off really slow. There's actually two plugs that are right back here, that we're gonna need to take off. So don't just pull it off real fast. We're gonna start on the outside. We're just gonna pull out like this, work our way to the center, do the same thing on the other side, and you see our two plugs right here. These are gonna be the same type of connections, we're just gonna push, pull out on the plug, just like that. And our driver's side, one way up here at the top. Now we're gonna set our fascia in a safe place, for now.Next, we're gonna take a 13 mm socket, we're gonna have two bolts, on each side of the bottom of our radiator support. We're gonna loosen those bolts and just let our radiator support hang. There. And we're gonna take the two out on the other side.Next, on each side of our vehicle, you're gonna see a piece that sticks out from our frame, like this. There's gonna be a hole on top and a hole on the bottom. We need to open those holes up to a 1/2 inch. We're gonna do that same thing on the other side.Next, we're gonna take a tape measure on our bumper core here. Right in the center we're gonna measure back 2 inches. And mark it, just make sure we're centered here. What we're gonna do, we're gonna drill a hole here. There's already a hole on the inside, we're gonna make a 1/2 inch hole through the whole thing. So we're gonna take a small bit, we're gonna make our pilot hole here, and then we'll open it up to a 1/2 inch.To make it easier, I'm gonna use a couple different drill bits. I'm gonna start with a small one, to do a pilot hole. Just gonna go couple bits bigger, closer to the 1/2 inch.You wanna make sure, when you open up the inside hole, if you don't feel comfortable, put something to block it there, because you're running right into the edge of your radiator here. We just wanna make sure we don't damage it. For the inside, we're not gonna have to push that hard, because it's a pretty good-sized hole. Like that. And you're gonna repeat that same process on the other side.Next, we're gonna have two brackets that are gonna look like this. You're gonna have one for one side, one for the other. This is gonna be our driver's side. The flat side is gonna actually sit on top, it's gonna cover this hole, this is gonna go up behind, to meet with this hole in the back. This is gonna go to the back, these two are gonna be right out here in the front. So how we're gonna do that, I'm gonna go back like this, slide it out, and we're gonna rest it down just like that.We're gonna take our 1/2 inch by 5 1/2 inch bolt, we're gonna put some Loctite on it, red Loctite. This does not come in your kit, the red Loctite, you wanna make sure you get some of that. You can find that here at etrailer.com. You're gonna put on this large washer, we're gonna go through both sides, and then through our bracket. And then on the inside, we're gonna put on a 1/2 inch lock washer, and then a nut on the inside.We're just gonna leave them loose for now. Then we're gonna take our 3 1/2 inch bolt, Loctite, down from the top, like this, through the bottom. We're gonna put on our flat washer, lock washer, and then nut. We're gonna make sure we leave that loose for now. I got it too tight.And we're gonna take another 3 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch bolt, Loctite, we're gonna go through this hole, you can see this hole right here in this bracket, through this sub-frame. We're gonna go all the way through to the back side. Now we're gonna put on 1/2 inch lock washer and nut.And you're gonna repeat that same process on the other side of the vehicle.Next, you can see how I have marked inaudible 00:09:53, we're gonna need to cut this section out of this guard. It's pretty soft rubber. You can just use a knife. And you're gonna repeat that same thing on the other side.Now we'll take our main receiver brace, and we're gonna set it into place, line up our holes. We're gonna take our small 1/2 inch bolt, like this on each side, again, make sure you're using Loctite. We're going from the outside in, and then we're gonna finish off with a 1/2 inch lock washer and nut, on each bolt.Then we're gonna tighten and torque all of our hardware to the specifications in the instructions. You can see I'm starting with the two bolts holding my main receiver brace to the brackets. And then we're gonna tighten and torque all of our bolts that are holding the brackets down to the frame.Once you're done tightening and torquing everything, you can reinstall your radiator core support.Once you have all your hardware tightened and torqued down for your base plate, it's a good idea, while your fascia's off, to add any other additional components for your flat tow setup, like your wiring or parts for your braking system. Once you have those components installed, before reinstalling your fascia, it is gonna require a little bit of trimming, not only around your base plate, but around the components that you've installed. When you reinstall your fascia, you're just gonna reinstall it in reverse order from the way you took it off. We're gonna be moving on to the inaudible 00:11:23 wiring installation on this. We're gonna be creating a video to help walk you through that installation, which you can find here at etrailer.com.