Ok, you've seen those spools of safety wire and funny twist
pliers around for some time and wondered "why would anyone
without a race car ever need that stuff... "
Decided to save $40 and install a class III hitch on the back
of my Ford Aerostar myself.
While it didn't look to bad to install, one trick was to enlarge
the hole on the bottom the frame rail... to pass the backing plate,
then carriage bolt through. Trick was how to do that, and keep
the bolts from getting knocked back into place when hoisting up
the hitch.
With some THIN safety wire I looped the bottom of the carriage
bolt... slid the backing plate into position, then feed the wire
in through the opening, and feed it back out the mounting hole.
Safety wire being used to pull the bolt though. Only proble was
to get the bolt to "stand up" which a small magnetic tool helped with.
Once all four bolts were finally into position, I feed the wires
through the hitch mounting points. Raised the hitch slowely with
a floor jack... keeping the bolts straight. Whew, went into position
without knocking any bolts back into place.
The two holes that I had to drill... I drilled at 9/16" rather than
the 1/2" per the instructions... glad I did.
The two rear most nuts come with a metal strap 6" long attached to
them. It was clear from the instructions that the strap needed to be
bent into a "L" shape -- which was impossible. Trick was to use
a 6" long bolt to screw into the nut.... then PULL it down to the
bottom of the boxed section, then holding the end of the strap, you
could hold the nut in place, while installing the 1" long bolts.
[I love instructions that say "place into boxed area, then tighten." ].
A drop of locktite, and a final torque of 75 ft pounds... ready to go.
Finally job took about 2.5 hours... the shop said it would need
about 45 minutes to install. Hey I still saved $40... hmm, what
else do I need in the tool box? ;-)
Cheers,
Tom Walter
Austin, TX.
P.S. Any other Aerostar owners... I have a tow package on my '95,
which has a small round four plug trailer light connection.... stopped
into the local Ford dealer, only to discover it cost $95 for a "mating
plug and harness" Egads.... before I cut it off, and splice on a
cheap universal anyone know of another source of those connectors?
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