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

Video Transcript for Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver Installation - 2017 Jeep Patriot

Rob: Hey everybody. Rob here at etrailer.com and today, we'll be taking a look at the Curt Class 2 Custom Fit Trailer Hitch Receiver on our 2017 Jeep Patriot. Now here's what our hitch is going to look like. I think it looks pretty good, it has almost a factory type look to it. And that's because the cross tube is going to be completely hidden behind the bumper and the only thing we're going to see is the receiver tube sticking out. Now, again, it is a class two, which means it's going to give us that inch and a quarter by inch and a quarter receiver tube opening, and it's going to be great for some light duty towing.

Maybe you have a small jet ski trailer or a small utility trailer you need to move around. But at the same time, it's going to be really good for bike racks and cargo carriers, that way we can hit the trails with some friends or family, or possibly just make some room on the inside with a cargo carrier, moving all that gear to the outside.Now, regardless of how you're going to be using your hitch, all of the accessories are going to mount to the hitch pin hole here on the side. And the hitch is going to accept a standard half inch pin and clip. Now, these aren't going to come with the hitch, but you can find them here at etrailer.com along with some locking devices and anti-rail devices to keep everything nice and secure and to cut down on that noise coming from the back of the receiver tube. But also we're going to have a spot to hook up our safety chains.

Here we have a loop style, it's welded to the bottom of the receiver tube. You can see it, it's just almost like a rolled steel stock. And if you have most normal sized hooks like this, you can see there is plenty of room to get them hooked and take them off. You don't have to really worry about hitting the Jeep on the bottom of the fascia or interfering with the pin and clip.Now, obviously, if you're looking for a hitch, weight capacity and what it's going to be able to do is pretty important. So the weight ratings on our hitch are going to be a 300-pound ton weight.

That's the maximum downward force at the end of the receiver tube. To put that in perspective, we'll be able to carry a decent amount of bikes with this, maybe two, three bikes with us. Now the hitch is also going to have a 3,500 pound gross trailer weight rating, that's how much the hitch can pull, but that does include the trailer and a load we have on it. So with all those numbers in mind, you do want to double-check your Patriots owner's manual, because again, those are the ratings for our hitch, and we don't want to exceed the manufacturer's rating for our vehicle.I'd like to give you a few measurements, these are going to help you whenever you're looking for accessories for your new hitch, like a bike rack or a cargo carrier. From the center of the hitch pin hole to the outermost edge of the bumper, it's right about five and a half inches.

Now that measurement's going to help you out when you're looking at folding accessories, to make sure you have enough room to put them in the upright storage position and not make contact with the rear bumper. From the ground to the inside top edge of the receiver tube opening, it's right about 14 and a half inches. Now at that height, I would recommend a bike rack or a cargo carrier of the raised shank, that way we can get just a little bit more ground clearance out of it. Now that we've seen what our hitch looks like and gone over some of the features, let's bring it into the shop and go through the installation process together so you can have the confidence to do it at home.To begin the installation, we want to come to the back of our Jeep and at the very bottom of the fascia here, we're going to have several push pin fasteners that we need to remove. So we're going to grab a flat blade screwdriver or a trim panel tool. Now you'll notice there's a little notch on each one of the push pins. We're going to take your tool, go underneath that notch, you want to pry out the center section first, that's going to take all the tension off and if it comes out, that's perfectly fine. But then once that's out or loosened, we want to come underneath the base and pull the rest of the push pin out. Now the rest of these are going to work that way so we're just going to work our way across the bottom edge, pulling out all the push pins.Now we've moved to the rear wheel. We're right behind the rear tire, right at the edge. We're going to have a couple of bolts that are holding that liner in place, so we're going to grab a seven millimeter socket and we'll pull both of these out. We're going to have these two screws on the other side as well, so we'll finish taking this one out and move to the other side and remove those too. So our next step is going to be lowering our exhaust, but we don't want to just lower it down without having some kind of support device underneath it. At home, you use a jack stand. Whatever you have available, but you just don't want it to hang down too far. So I'm going to take a strap and I'm going to hook it to a secure spot on the frame.I'm actually just going to centre it down, so it's nice and taut, that way when we lower it down, we can control it by this strap. So one side of the muffler here for the back corner on the driver's side, we're going to have the hanger and that's actually connected to a rubber isolator. So we would take a little bit of spray lubricant, spray it on the hanger and the isolator. Just makes it a little bit easier to slide off. Then I can take a pryer bar, and I'm going to pry against the hanger itself. And the main goal is just to get that isolator to slide off of there.Spray lubricant just makes it a little bit easier for it to move. Now that we had this one removed, we'll move over to the other side of the muffler, where we're going to have another hanger, an isolator, that we need to remove. Now you can see that once we have these lowered, we can lower that strap down a bit, but we may not have as much room as we need, so we can move further up the exhaust and remove another isolator. We just want to follow the exhaust pipe forward to the next one down the line. Now the next one is going to be pretty far forward, it's going to be about halfway of the vehicle, but really easy to access. There's not a whole lot around it. Just again, make sure you have that strap in place, so the exhaust doesn't come down too far.So we can lower the exhaust down to where we have plenty of room to work right above it right here. Right above the exhaust, we're going to have our heat shield. That's going to be held in place by four studs with nuts on them. So we're going to grab a 10 millimeter socket and we're going to pull all those nuts out. Once you have all the hardware removed, gently pull down on the heat shield and we'll set it aside for right now. Now, if we come to the frame rail, we're on the passenger side over here, you're going to notice that we have two holes on the inside of the frame. Well, those are actually all the way through the frame. So we have them on the outside as well. And those are going to be our two mounting locations on the passenger side.So what we want to do is we want to grab one of the long hex bolts out of our kit, we're going to follow it up with a flat washer and we'll come from the outside of the frame and we're going to pass them through. But instead of having the bolt go all the way through, we want to leave room for our hitch to be put in place. So you just want it to be nice and even, or pretty close to poking through. Again, that way we have room for our hitch to fit through and fit into the inside of the frame rail. And we're going to do that for the other hole and we're going to have the same two mounting locations on the driver's side frame rail, so we're going to put that hardware in place as well.Now, with an extra set of hands we're going to lift our hitch up. I do want to mention that we're only going to get one piece of hardware in place right now, that's going to be the forward mounting holes. So we're going to lift it up, rotate it so we can get those forward bolts lined up. You want to push them through the frame, and that'll allow the hitch to hang by itself. And we want to loosely apply one of the flange nuts, just hand tight for now, they don't need to be very tight, but just enough so that our hitch isn't going to fall down.So now that we have our hitch loosely in place, obviously it's not going to be pointing down like this, but it allows us to hang our hitch. What I'm going to do is I'm going to rotate it up to where it just touches the fascia here. We're not going to be pushing on it or anything, but we'll rotate it up. Then I'm going to take a marker and I'm going to mark where the outside edges of my hitch are. And that'll give me a reference point of how wide I need to trim my fascia.And then if we look at our instructions, they are going to give you a diagram that gives you a rough idea of how you need a trim. So I'm going to follow those measurements and measure up and then connect on my lines and we can trim out that section. Now, whenever you go to trim out your fascia, you can use just about whatever you have. You can use your utility knife. You want to make several scores, not pressing too hard. And then eventually just make small passes that keep going a little bit deeper. You can use a pair of tin snips, or a rotary tool like this.I do suggest that you trim a small amount, probably less than you think you need to because we can always come back and take a little bit more material off, but we can't put it back. So I always like to trim as small as humanly possible. We can always come back with a file or a razor knife, clean up any of this excess plastic and possibly trim out a little bit more if we need to. But now we can just take our hitch and we can rotate it up. We're going to push those bolts through the frame and then loosely get a flange nut in place. Again, they don't have to be real tight, we just want to make sure that hitch stays in the position that we put it. We'll do the same thing on the other side. But now that the hitch is loosely in place, we're going to grab a 19 millimeter socket and wrench, or a three quarter inch socket and wrench, and we're going to tighten up all of our hardware.You want to make sure you come back with a torque wrench and torque all your hardware down to the specified amount in the instructions. You may or may not have to hold the nut with a wrench, maybe on there, tight enough to where the bolt will tighten up, but it's a good idea to have that wrench on hand in case it does start spinning. We're going to go through and continue tightening down all of our hardware until it's all torqued to specifications. We're going to line up our heat shield and replace the factory hardware that we removed earlier. Then we can get ready to put our exhaust back in place.Always like to spray a little more lubricant on each one of the hangers, then I'll actually lift up, tighten that strap so I don't have to hold it while I'm getting each one of the hangers back in. Then we can put all these fast screws back at the bottom of the fascia. With these push pins, you want to make sure that center section is either completely out or sticking out and push the base in and then push the center section in to lock it down. Once you have all your fasteners back in place, that'll finish up your installation and your look at the Curt Class 2 Custom Fit Trailer Hitch Receiver on our 2017 Jeep Patriot.