Draw-Tite Max-Frame Trailer Hitch Receiver - Custom Fit - Class III - 2"

Video Transcript for Draw-Tite Max-Frame Trailer Hitch Installation - 2020 Mitsubishi Outlander

Hey everyone. How's it going Today, we're gonna be going over and showing you how to install the Draw-Tite trailer hitch receiver here on your 2020 Mitsubishi Outlander. So here's what our trailer hitch looks like installed. A couple of things I'd like to point out, one of them is specific to the Draw-Tite hitch is that they come with an integrated mounting bracket. So if we're towing a trailer, we're gonna need a wiring harness as well. And this included mounting bracket here is gonna be an excellent option to mount your trailer connector to.

It's gonna cut down on the overall amount of parts you need, and everything's gonna have an integrated seamless design. So a couple of other things in regards to the actual aesthetics of the hitch, number one, you're gonna see we have this nice rounded collar on the outside of the receiver tube. And then number two, you're gonna see we have a nice black powder coated finish which is gonna do a great job of protecting our hitch from rust and corrosion being that it's on the underside of the vehicle. So adding a trailer hitch to your Outlander, it's gonna be an excellent option 'cause it's gonna make your vehicle that much more versatile. So with our hitch here, we can do a number of different things.

We can obviously use our trailer hitch for towing but we can also use it to attach a bike rack if we wanna go hit the trails or we can use it to attach a cargo carrier if we just simply want to free up some space inside our vehicle. So our trailer hitch here holds a class three rating, which is gonna provide us with a 4,000 pound gross trailer weight rating which is the amount we can pull outward on the receiver tube. We're also gonna have a 600 pound tongue weight rating which is the downward force on the receiver tube. Now I would like to point out that the trailer hitch is actually tested separately at the vehicle. So if the vehicle is rated lower, that's the number we need to go by.

Furthermore, if we are gonna be towing, preferably towards the upper end of the towing capacity of our vehicle, you may want to consider a weight distribution system. We have plenty of those to choose from here at etrailer. And the great thing about this particular hitch here is that it is rated for one of those systems. So the actual receiver tube opening here is gonna be 2-inch by 2-inch, which is an industry standard measurement. It's gonna allow us to choose a much greater variety of hitch-mounted accessories than we would normally with the smaller 1 1/4 inch by 1 1/4 inch.

So be sure to check out our selection of those accessories here at etrailer. So if you take a look at the side of the receiver tube, you're gonna see we have two holes here. The larger one towards the rear is the hitch pin hole, 5/8-inch in diameter. It will accept a standard 5/8-inch diameter hitch pin and clip. Keep in mind the hitch pin and clip is sold separately. Most bike racks and cargo carriers, however, do come with their own. The smaller hole here, directly in front of our hitch pin hole, that's gonna be used with a J-Pin stabilization device. We do offer that. It is sold separately. And basically what this device does is it works as both an anti-rattle and a security mechanism because it has a lock. And what the anti-rattle mechanism does is essentially puts pressure inside the receiver tube on our accessory. It holds it in there tighter, so we have a more stable connection. And now moving on to the safety chain loops welded to the bottom of the cross tube and the receiver tube. Those are gonna be plenty large enough to accept the larger clevis style hooks, as well as the smaller S type hooks. So now we have a couple of measurements for you guys. The first one I like to do is the distance from the ground to the bottom edge of the receiver tube which is our ground clearance, essentially. That's gonna be 10 and 3/4 inches. Then I like to get the distance from the ground to the top inside edge of the receiver tube. And that measurement there is useful when you're selecting your ball mount, that way you can make sure you get the correct rise and drop to tow your trailer level. That one's gonna be right at 13 inches. And then finally the distance from the center of the hitch pin hole to the outside edge of the bumper. So normally, we'd like to do that when we hitches a little bit more recessed, that way you can make sure that while you have your folding accessories on there, that while they're in the stowed position, they don't contact the bumper. But for this one, it looks like the hitch pin hole to the outside edge of the bumper, it's actually going to stick out about 1 1/2", so you shouldn't have any issues at all with your folding accessories. So in regards to installation, this one is super simple. Definitely something you guys can do at home by yourselves. You don't have to have a lot of mechanical knowledge nor do you really need to have a lot of specialized tools. A basic socket set will get the job done. Let's go ahead and walk you through that now. So to start off our installation, we need to go ahead in our lower exhaust down. And the reason we need to do this is because we have to fit the trailer hitch into position above the exhaust and below the frame. So to give ourselves more room to work, we're gonna be lowering the exhaust. It's super simple to do this. We're gonna take some sort of support device. If you're on the ground, you could probably use a jack stand, a couple of blocks of wood, or if you're in the air, you're gonna use a cam buckle strap, most likely. Just go ahead and hook it to two points on the frame here. Doesn't really matter where and pull that tight to provide support. The next thing we're gonna do, we're gonna take a spray lubricant. We're gonna go ahead and spray down our hangers. We have three hangers, here, here, and here. So we're gonna spray those down to make them easier to remove. Now, we're gonna take an exhaust hanger removal tool or a pry bar, whichever you have and you can even use both to remove the metal hanger from the rubber isolator. And this is about how much space we need between the exhaust and frame to install our trailer hitch. So anywhere around here, it's gonna be fine. So the next thing we're gonna be removing is the tie-down hook. So it's gonna be a good idea to go ahead and spray down the threads on our bolts here with some lubricant, make them a little bit easier to remove. So now we're gonna take the 14 millimeter socket. We'll remove our three bolts. We have one on the bottom and then two on the side here. We can go ahead and set this aside. It will not be reused. Now with an extra set of hands, we'll go ahead and lift our hitch up into position using the fastener supplied with our kit. So we'll come up and over the exhaust side first. Over here on the driver's side, we're gonna be using our carriage bolt. We're gonna be coming from the outside in. On the passenger side, it's the reverse, we're gonna be coming from the inside out. So over here on the passenger side, as we said earlier, you wanna make sure that the carriage bolt here, the head of it is facing in and the threaded portion is gonna be facing out. So as far as actually securing the hitch to the vehicle once we have our bolts in place, for the top two bolts on either side here, you wanna make sure that you're using the 1/2 inch black flat washers as well as your nut. So you do have another type of washer in the kit, it's a conical tooth washer. Those will be used for the bottom bolts. Just make sure we're using these washers on the top two bolts for either side. So now over here on the driver's side, these top two bolts use the same washers that we used over there. So once we get the two top bolts secure, we need to go ahead and install the one that goes from the bottom of the flange on the hitch here up into the frame. Before we do that though, there's gonna be an access hole directly in front of this flange here. We need to go ahead and enlarge that because we have to stick both a spacer block and a carriage bolt through that hole. So if you have a step up drill bit that'll work as well or what works really good is the burr bit here. So we use that to enlarge the access hole, just enough until we can fit both our spacer block in the carriage bolt through. So we've got our hole opened up a little bit on each side, go ahead and test fit our spacer block and then our carriage bolt. Perfect. So now what we're gonna do is we're gonna take the pull wire that comes in our kit here. We're gonna stick one end of it in the coiled end to the hole that we wanna insert the bolt through. And then we're gonna fish it out, the access hole that we just enlarged. But let me show you guys a little trick here because it's such a short distance there, especially we wanna go ahead and bend the pull wire about like this. It's gonna make it a lot easier when we're trying to fish it out, that access hole. So you're still gonna want to stick your finger up there to guide it in place, but just that slight little bend on it should make things much easier. But once we have it through the access hole, place our spacer block on, all that up with carriage bolt. And then we will shove the spacer block up into the frame first and then follow that up with our carriage bolt. And then we can pull it down through the hole in the frame, pull off our pull wire, then we're gonna place a conical tooth washer over that, making sure the teeth are facing the hitch. And I'll use that washer to pin the bolt to the side, that way it doesn't jump back up in the frame and insert our hex nut. Once we have that on, the next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna come back to our access hole there. Now we shaved away some of the frames so it exposed bare metal. We're gonna come back with a paint marker or if you have a can of spray paint, we're just gonna go ahead and seal up that bare metal as best we can. And now it's time to tighten and torque all of our hardware. So now all that's left to do is to raise our exhaust back up into position. And that's gonna do it today for our look and installation of the Draw-Tite trailer hitch receiver here on your 2020 Mitsubishi Outlander..