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

Video Transcript for Trailer Hitch Installation - 2017 Subaru Outback Wagon - Curt C12136

Today on our 2017 Subaru Outback Wagon, 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 a 1-1/4 x 1-1/4 inch opening. It's part number is C12136. This is what our hitch is going to look like installed. It's a really nice clean look, I think. We've got the round tube that's going to come over here. It meets in the middle with our receiver tube opening.

This is 1-1/4 x 1-1/4 inch nice, flush-looking reinforcement collar around the end of it. I like the way Curt does that. These are our safety chain connection points here. An oval shaped hole. You shouldn't have any problem getting safety chains connected with whatever type you may want to use. You'll see our 1/2-inch diameter pin hole here.

It's going to be great for uses with this pinning clip, which is provided with the hitch or if you want to do a locking hitch pin or even an anti-rattle device, it looks like we're going to have plenty of room there. This is Class II hitch so you're going to have lots of options as far as accessories that will fit it, 4-bike racks, cargo carriers, ball mounts so you can haul a small trailer. All of that is really good uses for it.

With that being said, Curt will recommend the use of a stabilization strap when we're hauling non-wheel loads, so cargo carriers, bike racks, things that like. A couple of measurements that will be helpful when it comes to selecting ball mounts, bike racks or cargo carriers will be from the ground to the inside top edge of our receiver tube opening. We've got about 15-3/4 inch. Then from the center of our hitch pin hole to the outermost edge of our bumper, it's about 1-3/4 inch. The first thing we need to do is get our exhaust lowered down and out of the way. This is a single outlet exhaust, so we're just going to have three hangers. We've got one that's located right here at the rear corner and to the inside of the car. Right catty-cornered, there's going to be one right up here. Then if we'll follow the pipe forward a little bit, there's one right in front of this rear differential. Now before we start pulling those, what I like to do is just put a strap underneath the exhaust here. That's going to offer us some support so as we remove those hangers, this will support it and then we can gently lower it down as much as we want. The next thing we're going to do is start pulling those hangers down. I like to use some spray lubricant on them. This is just going to help them slide off a little bit easier. Then a large screwdriver or pry bar is really what you're going to need. We'll just kind of slide those off. We'll do that for our other two locations. If you have a dual exhaust, you're just going to repeat this same process, but it will be over on the passenger side. We'll leave a little slack there and then we can kind of move that exhaust over a little bit. It's going to give us the room we need to work. Now we've got 4 bolts. We've got 1, 2, 3 and 4 that we're going to need to remove. All right. Now we can set these aside for re-installation later. Now we're going to pull the plugs out of the bottom of the frame rail. That's going to expose one of the holes here that we're going to enlarge and then the one here in the rear is going to be one of our attachment points once we get our bolt fish wired down through it. The first thing we need to do is enlarge this hole located here in the front. That's what we're going to use to slide all of our hardware in. We're going to create that to be out access hole. Now you can use a grinder and kind of round it out on each side. What I like to use is a step bit. This is going to allow us to just slowly enlarge the hole as we go. It will keep it kind of more uniform looking. Once we've got these enlarged so our bolt passes freely in and out there, that's what we're looking for. I like to use a little rustproof spray paint here and just coat that and let it dry. That way, we're not going t have to worry about any corrosion or anything like that on that bare steel. Now we're ready to get our hardware installed so we'll take our bolt leader or our fish wire or whatever you want to call it and we're going to go in the rearmost attachment point and direct it back to where we can get it through the hole that we enlarged. Now onto that, we're going to slide one of our spacer blocks. We'll thread on one of the 1/2-inch carriage bolts. I like to feed them in separately. That's usually the best tactic. Then we'll bring them right back to that rear location. We'll go do the exact same thing for our passenger side. Now with the help of an extra set of hands, we're going to guide our hitch up into position. We'll go right over the bolts we just put in. Then we'll take our flange nuts. We're going to thread them right up on the carriage bolts. Now we'll snug down our hardware just a little bit here. Now using our hitch as a template, we want to drill out a hole that's 17/32nds in diameter. I've also used a 1/2-inch bit and then just kind of enlarged it slightly. We want a 1/2-inch bolt to come through. That extra 32nd just gives us a little cushion room. We can head over to the passenger side and just repeat that same process. Now with our holes drilled out, we'll use our bolt leaders again. We'll run those up through and out the same access hole. Then we'll slide on another spacer block, thread on our carriage bolt and bring them down through. Now we can place a flange nut on our forward mounting location there and then go do the same thing for our passenger side. We'll snug those down as well. It's time to grab our torque wrench and check our instructions for the proper specifications and get all of our hardware torqued down appropriately. Now we're going to get our heat shield trimmed here. Basically, we just want to come up this ridge just past that . I'll call it the second little channel that runs through and then right up to the side. This is a pretty thin piece of metal so you can use just tinsnips or whatever you've got there to cut it like that. Then we'll replace the 3 bolts to get it put back into position. We just removed one of the mounting locations there. Now it's time to get our exhaust put back into position. A little more spray lubricant here is going to help that out. We can just raise it up and slide our hangers on. We'll pull down our safety strap here and our hitch will be ready for use. That will complete our installation of our Curt Custom-Fit Class II Trailer Hitch Receiver, Part No. C12136, on our 2017 Subaru Outback Wagon.