Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver w/ Euro Drawbar - 1-7/8" Ball - Custom Fit - Class II - 1-1/4"

Video Transcript for Trailer Hitch Installation - 2008 Lincoln MKX - Curt

Today on our 2008 Lincoln MKX we'll be installing the Curt Class 2 Trailer Hitch, Part Number C12036. All right. Here's what our hitch looks like installed. As you can see, it's nice and tucked up under our vehicle. It doesn't really hang down terribly low at all. In fact our exhaust is almost lower than our hitch is so you don't have to worry about losing any ground clearance.

It has a nice round tubular construction for our frame with a high gloss black powdercoat finish which will provide us with many years of rust and corrosion-free service. This hitch as a 350 pound max tongue weight rating and a 3,500 pound max gross trailer weight rating. It is a Class 2 receiver with our standard 1-1/4 inch diameter opening. As you can see, we have this collar that is welded on the back of it here. That gives a nice clean finished look on it. We have our standard 1/2 inch diameter hitch pin hole to secure whatever hitch-mounted accessory we may have. We have these nice substantial easy-to-use safety chain loops right here that's welded on the plate that attaches to the bottom of our receiver and to the frame of the hitch itself.

It's a really sturdy connection point right there. This hitch offers a real easy installation. You only have to drill two holes in the frame. Sealing into place with six bolts, four go into existing holes already in the frame. You just have to drill out the rearmost holes. This hitch, if you're using it in a non-trailer application such as using it for a bike rack or a cargo carrier, Curt does require the use of a stabilization strap to help support the load.

We do have those available separately on our website. For a few measurements to better assist you in choosing any hitch-mounted accessory you may need such as a ball mount, bike rack, or cargo carrier, you're looking at about seven inches from the center of the 1/2 inch diameter hitch pin hole to the rearmost point on the back bumper. You're also looking at about 13-3/4 of an inch from the ground to the top of the 1-1/4 Class 2 opening on the receiver. Now that we've gone over some of our features of our Curt Class 2 Hitch, we'll show you how to install it. Here's what your hitch comes with. Obviously, we have the hitch itself. We have our six spacer plates here which will go inside our vehicle's frame rail and then our carriage bolts will drop on down into.

Now our carriage bolts, we have four that are the same length here. Then we have two that are a little bit longer than the other four. Then we have six flange nuts here. Our hitch does come with a pin and clip to secure our ball mount which you can purchase separately. Then we have our fish wires to get our hardware inside the vehicle frame. Now that we've gone over what's included for our hitch, we'll show you how to get it installed. We'll begin with supporting our exhaust here with a strap just so that we don't cause any damage to it when we have to lower it down. With the strap here we can now remove our exhaust hangers. There's one right here, right in front of our Y-pipe where it splits off from our exhaust pipe to our two mufflers. Spray it with some lubricant so it slides off easier. There is one on both sides of our mufflers. Now we can take a pry bar and pry off our exhaust hangers. Our exhaust comes down nice and easy. Now we need to remove our exhaust heat shields. There's three 8mm bolts on both heat shields plus a plastic clip. We'll take our bolts out. Now we can remove our panel fastener on the driver's side heat shield. There is a wiring harness clipped to the heat shield as well. We'll pop that off and set our panel to the side. We'll repeat the same process on the passenger side minus the wiring harness. It does not have one. On our heat shields we need to trim off this corner here with this tab on. We'll use a pair of tin snips and do that. We'll do the same on both heat shields. We're on the passenger side of our vehicle right now. Just in front of our exhaust hanger there is an access hole. We'll take one of our fish wires and go through it and it will come out the back of our frame rail. Here's our fish wire. We'll slide this spacer onto the wire and we're going to thread our carriage bolt onto the wire. Once the bolt is fully threaded on, we'll grab our pull wire and start off inaudible 00:05:02 frame and pull the bolt on down through. Then we can remove the pull wire. Now we'll go through this hole here and it's the same process. Remove our pull wire. We'll do the same on the other side of the vehicle. Now we'll put our exhaust heat shields back up. Put your push pin back in place and we'll reinstall the bolt next to the push pin. You will not reinstall these two bolts because they won't let our hitch sit flush against our frame. Get it threaded a few times. Do the same on the other one making sure we clip our wiring harness back onto it. Now with the help of a neighbor or friend, we'll raise our hitch up into position and install two of our nuts. Do the same on both sides. Right now we can snug down our 3/4 inch nuts a little bit. Okay. With these bolts snugged up we can now use our hitch as a template and drill out our back hole right here. Drill the pilot hole first and do the same on the other side. Now we'll use our pilot hole as a guide and drill our hole out to final size of 1/2 inch. We'll repeat the same process on the other side. All right. Now that we have our holes drilled we can stick our fish wire in the hole and it will come out the back of the frame. We'll take our spacer plate, put it on our wire, put our carriage bolt on and we'll pull our hardware into the frame. Okay. We can remove our pull wire now. We'll install our nut and I'll repeat the same process on the other side. With the rear hardware in place we can now snug down our bolts. Now we can torque our hardware to the amount specified in the instructions. All right. With all of our bolts torqued we can raise our exhaust back up into position. We'll start with the hanger towards the front of the exhaust just to help support some of the weight. With our exhaust hung back up we can move our strap now. That completes our installation of the Curt Class 2 Trailer Hitch, Part Number C12036 on our 2008 Lincoln MKX.