Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver with Standard Drawbar - Custom Fit - Class II - 1-1/4"

Video Transcript for Trailer Hitch Installation - 2008 Subaru Forester - Curt

Today on our 2008 Subaru Forester, we're going to take a look at and also show you how to install the Curt Custom Fit Class II Trailer Hitch Receiver, offering the inch and a quarter by inch and a quarter opening. The part number is C12038. This is what your hitch is going to look like installed on your vehicle. Got our cross tube, runs over. Now this attaches right into the frame bracket here. This is going to go up and over the exhaust. So it gives you a nice, clean look, and you see our inch and quarter by inch and a quarter receiver tube opening here.

Nice flush looking reinforcement collar around the end of it. Safety chain connection points are going to be nice and easy to get to. They're plenty big enough to get just about whatever size chain you want to connect it. And if you look right in there, we've got our half inch diameter pinhole. It's what we're going to use to secure all of our items with. Looks like we've got plenty of room for whatever accessory you might choose, whether it's a locking hitch pin, anti-rail device, or just a regular hitch pinning clip.

You just want to be sure it's rated for Class II use. Now the Class II bike racks are very versatile. These will allow you to carry cargo carriers, small trailers, bike racks, things like that. It's going to have a 350 pound tongue weight capacity. So that's the maximum downward force that we can put here on the receiver tube opening, and it offers a 3500 pound gross trailer weight rating. That would be the total weight of your trailer and anything that you might load up on it.

This hitch is not rated for use with weight distribution. Curt also recommends the use of a stabilization strap anytime you're going to be hauling non-wheel loads. That would be something like a cargo carrier or maybe a bike rack. Now, we definitely want to take a look at the owners manual on our Forester. We want to see what it's tow rating is and we'll go off of whichever of those numbers are the lowest. Now a couple of measurements that are helpful in selecting ball mounts, bike racks or hitch cargo carriers, would be from the ground to the inside top edge of the receiver tube opening. We've got about 13 and a quarter inches.

Then from the center of our hitch pinhole to the outer most edge of our bumper. It's about 5. Now to begin our installation, we need to get a few things removed. We'll start here on the driver's side. You've got the rear exhaust hanger. We're going to pry that off. We'll be removing the bolt and and also the bracket, holding it in place. Then if we come forward on the car just a little bit, there's going to be four more bolts there holding that tie-down bracket down. We'll get those out of the way, as well. Now for the larger bolts, we're going to use a 17 millimeter socket. Now the two bolts on the side that go kind of out towards the outside of the vehicle, those are a little smaller. We'll need a 14 for those. Now that we've got enough room just to remove this bolt, which also uses a 14, we can go ahead and do that. We're going to be re-attaching that hanger anyway. There's no real sense in fighting with it. Spin that down out of the way, and then we'll take out those two remaining bolts there. Now that evaporation canister needs to come down. We've got nuts here to take off, two on the back side, one on the front here. For these, we're going to use a 12 millimeter socket. Now we can let that hang down just a little bit and give us room to get into the three bolts we'll be removing here. Now here on the passenger side, we're using one, two, three attachment points to the hitch. These being a little bit rusted up and that, we're going to clean them out. We use nylon tube brush, part number 814092, to free those threads up of any dirt or debris that might be in there. Do the same thing for our driver's side. Now if we come here to the middle, hitting the trunk pan area, we've got a push pin fastener here. Then the nut and the bolt can get out of the way. The idea is to pull the center of this fastener out. Once that's out, the whole thing can come out. Now for these, we'll need a 10 millimeter. This one's not going to be in the way, so we'll just thread that back in. Now with an extra set of hands, we're ready to get our hitch raised up into position. You kind of want to guide it up over the exhaust there. Then on our passenger side, we need to get . See how the hitch will fit right into that hanger bracket location We want to get that in there, and then I'm going to start the bolt further to the rear here because it's easier to get in place. That's about three or four good turns. Now, we'll just align the bracket with the weld nut there. Put that up through there. Thread it in. Now with one started on each side, we'll just let our hitch rest there in position and get the rest of our hardware in place. We're replacing the three larger bolts we removed here on the passenger side, and the four on the driver side. Now we'll take a quick look, just to be sure we've got our hitch centered there. You'll have a little bit of play left and right, so we'll get that squared up. Then we'll snug down those bolts and torque them to specification. Now we'll get our evap canister slid back up into position. We're going to secure it with the nuts we removed when we took it down. Now we'll take the bolt for our exhaust hanger and place that through. Rotate it up into position. Then we'll be putting our clans nut here on the outside. Now we want to torque our bolt here down, as well. And that's going to complete our installation of the Curt Custom Fit Class II Trailer Hitch Receiver, part number C12038, on our 2008 Subaru Forester.