To see if this custom-fit item will work for you please tell us what vehicle you'll use it with.
Designed for use with motor-home-mounted tow bars, the direct-connect brackets are virtually invisible, easy to mount and remove, and they eliminate the need for a quick-disconnect crossbar on your tow bar. Installs on your Chevrolet Suburban's frame.
Features:
Note: Roadmaster direct-connect base plates will only work with Roadmaster tow bars that slide into a trailer hitch, such as the Nighthawk, Sterling, Blackhawk, Blackhawk 2, Falcon, or Falcon 2. These base plates will not work with tow bars that require a hitch ball.
The drawbars, or front arms, on this base plate kit are supremely easy to mount and remove. Just insert them into the brackets and twist to lock them in place. To remove each arm, simply tug the built-in pull pin to disengage the lock, twist the arm back and pull it out of the bracket. Once the drawbars have been removed, the remaining brackets are virtually invisible. On most automobiles, the brackets are mounted within the grille, where they remain not only unseen, but protected from scrapes and scuffs as well.
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hello neighbors, it's Brad here at etrailer and today we're taking a look and installing the Roadmaster Baseplate for towed vehicles on a 2016 Chevrolet Suburban. Now this is what our baseplate looks like when it's installed and the great part about this one is it replaces your factory tow hook so there's really no trimming or just minor trimming necessary to get this in place. So it retains a nice OEM look and since you are taking off your tow hook you still have your safety chain loop here it can act as a tow hook when normally driving your vehicle. Now overall I really like the clean look of the baseplate and it's a relatively easy installation. Now one thing you will have to keep in mind is mounting up the rest of your flat tow components including this one has an air brake system for its RV, your diode wiring as well as your braking system. Mounting those up can get a little bit tricky but I used our license plate bracket here and got a little bit creative for a nice clean look.
And all of our components are easily accessible so hooking up shouldn't be a problem. Now something that I really like is the removable arms on our baseplate. So right now we have a nice clean look and whenever we are ready to flat tow our vehicle it's pretty easy to take our removable arms, drop these in place, just twist them quarter way and it locks in place. So to get these in place, just line this up, take our pins put this in place here and when you pass it through, you're going to see that you have the hole here where you just align that our spring loaded pin just drops in, snaps down and we have one arm attached. Don't forget your safety chain.
And this is a really nice design. It sticks out just enough to get easy clearance to be able to get our chain on there but also it doesn't stick out too far, making it unsightly. Now with the rest of our flat tow components all hooked up we're ready to get our vehicle in tow mode and then hit the road. Now there's five main components when flat towing a vehicle that are gonna be required. And the first one is going to be on the vehicle side and that's gonna be the baseplate.
And the baseplate is going to attach to the frame in the vehicle or at least a structural support to be able to have our arms which will make the connection point to our tow bar. And our tow bar is gonna be the second component and that's gonna be the connection point between the vehicle and the hitch on the RV. Now we also have our safety chain loops with our safety cables here. So in case of an accidental disconnect, we still have an attachment point to hold this all together. Now if that does fail, we do have a breakaway switch here for our braking system that will pull this pin and bring the vehicle to a stop.
Now our braking system's also going to slow and stop the vehicle as we apply the brakes on the RV. We also have our diode wiring and that's gonna transmit our light signals from the RV via the seven pole to our six pole. And that way you have lighting functions of running lights brake lights, as well as our turn signals, keeping you safe and legal. Starter installation, we're gonna start on the top here. We're gonna have 12 plastic fasteners that run across the top of this piece here. We're gonna take a trim panel tool, you can do a screwdriver, we're gonna pry up this center and then we're gonna pull out the base. We're gonna repeat that process for the remaining fasteners. Once we get those off, we're gonna remove this panel and set it aside. We're gonna take a 10 millimeter socket. We're gonna have six bolts across the top of our grill here that we need to remove. Then on each side on the inside of your fender or inside of your fascia in front of your tire, we're gonna have six bolts we're gonna remove actually we're gonna have five, but we're gonna remove a sixth one as well to give us little extra room. These are gonna be T15 torques bits. And on each side we're gonna go underneath we're gonna move three 10 millimeter head bolts and then one plastic fastener if you have yours in place. It looks like this fascia has been taken off before but your plastic fastener would be right here. Next thing you would do is take 10 millimeter socket and remove a bolt from here and here. Next we need to remove our skid plate. We're gonna have four 10 millimeter head bolts. And then two, these are supposed to be 16 millimeter head bolts up here. And we'll remove our skid pipe and we'll set it aside. So next we're gonna pull back our fender liner. We're gonna come right to the inside right up here where our our front fascia meets our fender. We're gonna have a seven millimeter head bolt here. And back up on top, passenger side, you need to remove this plug or disconnect it. With being underneath and out in the weather this little plastic red tab can be a little bit hard to push up, so take a little screwdriver or something to unlock that. We're gonna push down this black tab. Sometimes these will get stuck 'cause they get dirt and stuff in them. Push down on this black tab and sometimes if you push together first, push down the tab and then pull apart they come apart pretty easy but you're just gonna have to work with it to get that disconnected. Take a flathead screwdriver, you're gonna see a plastic tab that comes inside from your fascia and you go up inside of here and release that. It's a little bit easier if you pull out on your fascia when you're doing that. Push up and that'll release that tab so we can pull our fascia off. And we're gonna pull up on the top of our grill to unsnap it and we're gonna come to the very outside where our front fascia meets our fender where we took that seven millimeter bolt out and the three on the inside and we're gonna start pulling out on it. So if you didn't quite get the tabs pushed up enough if you got your grill loose and you look down in there that white tab there and the black tab on the top is what's locking it in place. You can always pull this out a little bit and reach down there with your screwdriver and pop that black tab up as you're kind of pulling out on it. We'll slowly slide our face off, make sure we've got everything disconnected and then we'll set it off to the side somewhere safe. We need to remove our tow hooks. 18 millimeter socket wrench or two 18 millimeter sockets, we're gonna remove the nut and bolt here in the front. And then on the outside here we'll have an 18 millimeter bolt. Then we're gonna take a 15 millimeter socket, we're gonna have three bolts on each side for our bumper beam. We're gonna temporarily remove this to get our baseplate put in place and then we'll reinstall this later on. On the back side you can see this little tab. It's not gonna allow us to really get it off 'cause of this panel. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna pull it all the way over one side, just kind of lift on it. You can take a screwdriver or something, we're not actually bending this, we're just lifting it. Overtop of the front of our frame here we go over the other side and do the same thing. Once we get one side off we'll just slide it off and we'll set this down for now. You wanna make sure there's a notch on the front of it. This arm may be inserted in here. Just pull this pin, twist it and pull it out. This notch needs to be facing towards the center of the vehicle. We're gonna slide it right in place where our tow hooks were. So we're gonna take this large bolt, put a lock washer on, a plate, we're gonna come up down from the bottom here, there's a hole. We're gonna thread this in there and we're just gonna hand tighten it for now. We're gonna take one of these bolts through this front hole all the way through to the other side and we're gonna put a nut on and we're just gonna hand tighten that. And the reason we're doing this is because this hole doesn't go all the way through to the other side we're gonna use our baseplate and this hole as a guide to make sure our hole comes out the other side centered. Now we're gonna take a half inch drill bit and we'll drill through the other side. I'm gonna pull this bolt back off temporarily. We're gonna grab our second bolt. We're gonna have a plate like this. We're gonna pass our bolts through. Make sure that curve side is facing up and we're gonna pass them through our baseplate from the inside going out. We're gonna put a little bit of red loctite on each one. It doesn't come with your kit. You can find some here at etrailer. You're gonna take your safety chain bracket. You'll notice there's an angle, you want this angle facing out towards the outside. We're gonna slide it over top of our bolt. It's gonna be on the outside the frame rail. Black washer on each bolt. And we'll put on a nut. Then we're gonna remove our lower one, put some loctite on it and then reinstall it. 15/16th socket, I'm gonna tighten and torque the lower one first. That way our baseplate is sitting flat. You will find the torque specifications in the instructions. This is 3/4 inch socket that we're using on these top ones. And again, 15/16th for the lower bigger one. Once you get both sides on, tightened and torqued down you can go ahead and reinstall your bumper beam. Next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna test fit our fascia. Where our tow hooks we're we may require a little bit more trimming here around our baseplate in order to get it on but it's gonna be minimal. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna try to put it on see if we can do it without trimming. If we have to trim, we can pull it off and re trim it. It's a good idea at this point also, once you have your trimming out and you know it's gonna fit to install any other components like your braking system, breakaway switch, your diode wiring, anything like that while the fascia's off. It's gonna be a lot easier to run all your wires up here to the front. On our fascia where our tow hooks we're coming out there's little tabs there, you're just gonna kinda bend those down. 'Cause what we're gonna do is we're gonna cut these off and if we bend them down, it almost, you can see where it's white across there. It'll cut a little bit easier. And I'm just gonna use a knife. You can use a utility knife. Now with an extra set of hands we'll see if we can't get this to fit in place. So you can see we're missing about the top half of our baseplate so we're gonna have to trim this out just a little bit up here and we'll get it to slide on. And then to make it a little bit easier, I might trim off just a little bit on the outside here. So we did kind of have to stretch it to get it around our safety chain loops. So I'm gonna take a rotary tool, I'm gonna cut out where I marked it. We're gonna kind of do a half circle up here and I'm gonna go down a little bit and then come up along this side. With our trimming we're able to get our fascia put back on, at least slid over it fairly easy. So again, as I mentioned before, once you get it trimmed out before you completely reinstall it, go ahead and install any of your additional components braking system, breakaway switch, wiring, anything like that while it's loose and off. Thank you Shane. And that was a look and installation of the Roadmaster Baseplate on a 2016 Chevrolet Suburban..
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (2029 Customer Reviews)
Designed for use with motor-home-mounted tow bars, the direct-connect brackets are virtually invisible, easy to mount and remove, and they eliminate the need for a quick-disconnect crossbar on your tow bar. Installs on your vehicle's frame.Extremely reliable and durable product.
I bought and self installed this on my 2021 GMC Sierra Duramax 1 year ago. Install took about 5 hours and wasn't difficult...I could problty install it in 2-3 hours after leaening the tricks. Weve towed the truck all over the USA since then (over 10,0000 miles) and it works great! I've used other brands and highly recommend Roadmaster tow systems over the competition.
Good product. If you are reasonably handy and have some tools, you can install this yourself in a few hours. I'm a mechanic, it took me a little over 2 hours to install on my own toad. The fit is good, there are 4 holes you have to drill, otherwise it is plug and play. When you insert and twist lock the tow bar mounts into their sockets they feel a little sloppy but they are secure, and i never noticed any rattle when towing. Overall i give it a 4 out of 5 for easy install and clean look after install. Pic included of installed base plate.
The Roadmaster direct connect base was a perfect fit for my 2013 focus S to flat tow. We had it installed in about 3 hrs following the complete direction and pictures. I highly recommend using etrailer.
Installed on my 2020 Jeep Cherokee for flat towing behind our motorhome . I wanted a tow bar connection that integrated with the front end of the Jeep and the removable arms did the trick . I had one issue with the driver side receiver bracket not lining up with the upper mount bolt hole on the Jeep, image 0547. Had to make a slight adjustment to the receiver bracket so the holes would line up, image 0551 and image 0559. The rest of the install went smoothly
I also installed the Demco braking Stay n Play Duo system , image 0565 which went in without any issues, image 6028. 7 thousand miles of towing later, couldn't be happier with the products
This is a rock solid baseplate. Installed on a 2023 Equinox LT (AWD). I followed etrailer's videos for installation and they are spot on. We connect with a Roadmaster Nighthawk tow bar, charge line kit, smart diode lighting kit, and a Demco Stay-in-Play supplimental braking system. It is fairly well hidden when not in-use. This setup is great!
I installed them on my new RAM 1500. Works great, very heavy duty. I also modified and attached a push bumper and used the Roadmaster base plates.
Installing on 2020 Jeep Trailhawk :
Pic #0557 : Roadmaster Base Plate Kit , Demco Supplemental Braking System , Diode Wiring Kit , Demco Battery Charge Wire Kit
Pic # 0548 ,0551 , 0559 Had to adjust the bracket plate to line up with the upper bolt holes
Pic #6028 finished install , mounted the operating unit to the top fuse box cover using automotive Velcro . Air cylinder , controller and LED light installed . Aside from the base plate bracket not lining up with the upper bolt holes I would give it 4 stars . My son in law is a master at solving mechanical issues .
Installed on my 2020 jeep jl sport s with factory plastic bumper and plastic rock guard. Shane’s video was very helpful but I did not like how the metal plate behind the rock guard was cut away and how the rock guard had two big cut outs so I did some modifications. I cut two slots in the metal bracket and added angle brackets for extra support. As a result i did not use the supplied brackets for the rock guard. I created a template for the rock guard which resulted in two small cut outs. A lot of extra time but i am retired so time is relative. I think it looks great.
Exactly what I needed. Written jbstructuons were spot on and video was very helpful.
I was very pleased with the way you handled my order. I called and was greeted pleasantly and knowledgeable about what I needed and in just a few minutes my order was placed. It arrived just as they said it would in a timely matter.
I would recommend e-trailer to anyone!
I bought this base plate kit for my 2022 Jeep Rubicon Gladiator so I could flat tow behind my class a motor home with a Roadmaster Falcon all terrain non binding tow bar. The instructions were easy to follow and went smoothly except drilling the holes. That was my fault because I was using a dull drill bit. See attached photo
Easy install. Looks great. Apparently they have made some changes so that the video is not accurate. Install instructions though were spot on. A template for cutting the grill would be an added plus.
The base plate arrived on time, with excellent instructions. I went slowly because my truck is only days old and still had it done in an evening.
This kit worked out great for my 2022 Chevy Equinox. I like how it has separate side plates, which make it easier to attach the main bar. The points where it attaches to the frame seem plenty secure. It is important to watch the videos provided by etrailer as Ryan is very thorough and has good tips for installing. I would also recommend installing additional wiring while having the front end off. Overall, I was able to complete in my driveway. The hardest part was sorting out the wiring for whatever braking and tail lights you decide on. William S helped me pick all the necessary components needed for flat towing behind my Jayco RV. I am looking forward to a summer of camping and having more freedom to explore the area, now having a car.
The bracket kit fit my 2023 Subaru Crosstrek perfectly. The instructions are excellent and the video is really useful too. I’m really pleased with this RoadMaster bracket kit and the support from eTrailer.
Easiest I drive done. Works perfectly. I had some concerns if it would work on my Shelby F-150. etrailer put me in touch with Roadmaster directly who had never done one either. Said if it didn’t work I could return it. It fit with minor adjustments. Have towed a few thousand miles already. Couldn’t be happier
Item works good. We pulled our ‘21 Canyon behind our RV on several trips and had no issues other than you need to put in a diode to the rear lights to keep them from back feeding.
Just took the maiden voyage with the new Motorhome and the new Tow Car or ( Toad ). After getting everything set up and installed on the coach and the dingy towing was a breeze. Hardly even noticed that i was towing a car behind me. Bought all RoadMaster equipment and purchased everything from etrailer, baseplate and towbar with the invisibrake system and all the necessary cables. Etrailer was Awesome they made sure that I had everything needed and that everything fit my vehicle.
Have enjoyed the Roadmaster base plate on my Mercedes Benz Sprinter Van. The only complaint I had was what was required to install it. I have installed several in different vehicles and this one was the most difficult. Some are easier than others, but once installed, it performs as expected.
Great Company Product arrived on time and the tracking information was above and beyond what I expected Product is exactly as described and of excellent quality
Would highly recommend etrailer and Roadmaster
This is the fifth Roadmaster base plate that I have purchased. I will not use another brand as I feel it is the best for the money and Quality, installs easy as well. We just got them today and have not installed yet. so no photos sorry.
I have used Roadmaster base plates and tow bars for 18 years and they are great. Just received new base plate today for my new GMC Canyon, came a day early and looks great. Thanks etrailer for great price and super fast shipping. You folks are the greatest. Photos after I install it. RAY
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