To see if this custom-fit item will work for you please tell us what vehicle you'll use it with.
Is this right For you? Product Expert Mike S says:
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.
Features:
Note: Roadmaster direct-connect base plates will only work with Roadmaster tow bars that slide into a trailer hitch, such as the 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.
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (1179 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.Solid construction sorta...down right dumb install on older JKs. The secondary plates are not particularly well engineered and a real bandaid on less than perfect design. They are however needed, as mounting to only the vertical frame tubes will likely impart too much torsion on the welds that hold those tubes to the main frame rails. Especially so as the need for aggressive braking, or even a panic stop inevitably arises. I really dislike the mount bracket tubes for an electrical tow plug receptacle. Since I had already had one mounted in the bumper from a previous tow system, I just cut those 1/4" tubes off so that I never get injured on them...along with what ever the flat plate welded on near those tubes was for. There are no holes in the outer frame rails, as all the videos and install instructions show. So? You'll need to try to GUESS where to align and where to drill the outer holes. Guessing that they will be relatively centered in the body frame mount bracket, will cause a fail. You'll need to drill a second hole. Oversizing those holes was about the only way to get reasonable alignment for the bolt to make both holes, the bushing and the add on bracket. OEM power steering hydraulic lines, will rub on the long bolts heads once everything is installed. You'll need to engineer some sort of vibration isolators or stand offs to prevent chaffing through those aluminum tubes. If you're not careful with your drilling you may even drill into the lower corner of your radiator. None of the instructions discuss any of these product design shortfalls.
Sierra K - 07/15/2022ETrailer is a great place to receive good parts, fast delivery. I have installed a trailer hitch, Tow Bar and will be buying a rig to pull my Jeep to the back of my motorhome is coming next. I have done this by myself with the help of ETrailer and videos that tells you how and wait to do.
Steve - 03/13/2022
Class A towing a Jeep. We have been full time for a year now. No mechanical issues. We do see minor rust on the base plate.
Product arrived very quick. It is well made and came complete with all hardware and instructions. The only problem was that it has extra mounting plates for each side that doesn't show up on any of the videos. The instructions say if there isn't a hole on the outside of the frame on each side just to drill through from the inside to make the hole on the outside. There is barely enough room to get your hand in there let alone a drill. I lined up the lower holes on the mounting plate with the holes on the frame and marked the upper hole, drilled a pilot hole and checked the inside and adjusted accordingly then drilled the final hole. I like the fact that I can remove the tow arms so they are not shin busters.
Michael - 06/07/2019Received base plate with absolutely no damage. Had a few problems with the nut plates but Shawn B. did an excellent job in getting it corrected.
Very pleased with the looks of this base plate on my Jeep. (2018 JK 2 door)
Looking forward to getting hooked up to my motorhome and start traveling.
J J - 04/08/2020The product was exactly what I ordered and fit as easily as etrailer's very informative video tutorial showed that it would. The product was delivered before the expected date. And I was able to easily track the shipment. The best part of the etrailer experience was the extremely helpful staff member, Katie. My card had a problem going thru and Katie was as helpful in clearing that up as she was in assisting with the actual order. I will absolutely recommend etrailer to everyone.
From start to finish I probably had an hour thirty in this install. I tried multiple cutting tools for trimming the lower plastic panel. A good razor knife worked the best for me. After I loose fit the bar on my jeep, I took the plastic valance panel loose and let it hang on the tow bar. I was able to access the bottom bolts easier and use my screw driver to hold the inner flat nuts on the side ones easier as well. I had to clean the threads on the bottom flat plates which I wish I had seen before I started the assembly. All in all no biggie. My wiring bracket piping was bent in transit. I was able to bend them back in place and then up slightly to make it easier for me to plug in my motorhome harness. Great engineering. Simple process. I really like the way the tow bar sits under and slightly behind the front of the bumper. Clean set up.
It arrived in a timely manner was easy to install. My son and I did it in about 2 hours. Perfect fit the plug mounting studs were slightly bent during shipment but easily straightened. The wiring harness took much longer to install but I’m kind of pickie. I was able to feed inside the frame from front to back. Thanks for a great looking product.
The baseplate was exactly what I needed since I already have a similar set up on my Honda CRV. This allows me to tow either vehicle behind my motorhome. I also used diode wiring kit RM-15267 and RM-156-25, the battery charge kit. The videos were extremely helpful. I watched the diode video kit numerous times and took notes, before doing that project. It would have been nice to have a shop and lift, but I had to do with a cold garage and driveway with some blankets to lay on. The battery charge kit wire was really not long enough, so I bought some 14 gauge wire and made a longer wire. My jeep battery is in the rear of the engine compartment on passenger side. Kit may be ok for front battery. I've tested everything except the charging wire and actually towed my Jeep for a few miles to make sure everything works as it should. I was a little disappointed when I saw what the markup on the base plate kit was, but I couldn't have done the installation without the videos, so I ended up saving the money to have it all done. I was pleased that the baseplate fit under my aftermarket EAG winch bumper, which was very reasonable. You can see that the installation is a clean one. Sorry the pics aren't in perfect order.
The hardware and fittings are great quality. Loved the pre-mount for breakaway switch. The directions for the cutout sections of the front grill were not correct. Before I made cuts, I double checked and adjusted for less cutout and a tighter fit.
2013 Jeep Wrangler. Perfect fit. Buy locktite and new 1/2 drill. Care should be taken around trans lines.
Michael - 03/31/2022Fit my 2012 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon with a custom bumper perfectly. Calling Roadmaster Technical group if you have.a custom front bumper is a good idea to ensure your base plate will fit.
Connection plate is working great. Easy to install and usewith no issues.
The parts arrived way sooner than expected (seems to be a hibit for e-trailer). Don't get me wrong that's excellent.
As for the installation it went very smooth except for trying to lock the bolts in. place with the wire and red loctite took a bit of engineering and finding the right tool/screwdriver and a steel plate to keep the nut plate from spinning and got it to lock up tighten. Looks great and looks like part on the Jeep
The taillight package was flawless and went in better than I expected... just enough cable between lights and to the front of the Jeep...
Allan A - 10/01/2017Great design. Very tight fit. Not a single person job. I had to get my son to help and together we were able to get it over the frame. Once in place it went together pretty easy. After having a hitch with a cross bar this one is much easier and quicker to set up for the motor home.
Easy install and hardly noticable when towbar is removed from Jeep.
John - 04/11/2022Our Roadmaster tow bar is amazing, is easy to set up and super safe.
The roadmaster baseplate was a good fit and no holes had to be drilled on my 2018 Jeep Wrangler JK. I installed it by myself easier and quicker than I thought I could. I can’t wait to test it out.
Fast and easy to install. Works exactly as advertised.
First I'd like to provide a few comments on e-trailer. I'm a return customer, and will continue to be. The price was right, the delivery was really fast, and the kit arrived with all the parts, and in pristine condition. The big, heavy, part of this kit was well-packed, and even the little metal prongs on the front arrived undamaged. I took the time to watch the e-trailer installation video but it appears that the kit they used in the demo had some minor configuration differences from that delivered. That wasn't really an issue, since the directions in the kit were consistent with the configuration of my kit.
But now, about the kit. I installed a previous version Roadmaster base plate kit on a 2012 Jeep Wrangler Sport. It took me about an hour. This "new, improved" version... about six hours, spread over two days. Some was my fault, some bad directions, and some just bad luck, but the design of the kit was not user-installation-friendly, or an improvement of any kind over the older design. First, the new kit has both brackets connected by a large, beefy, bar. Great, except trying to get everything to line up is now much harder since the flanges on the kit are barrrrely wide enough to slip over the frame extensions on the Jeep. If you're off even a hair, they bind and you can't line up the bolt holes. And, with the brackets all in one piece, BOTH sides have to be lined up simultaneously. Lining up the bolt holes by tapping alternate sides with a hammer (my solution) works, but it sure is tedious. Oh, and there is a metal tab on the back side of the bar, behind the wiring prongs (not sure why it's there, maybe it serves a purpose on some other vehicle installation?). This tab is located in an EXTREMELY inconvenient location as, in addition to the problems lining up the bolt holes in the tight-fitting flanges on the frame extensions, you have to slide this tab through a little slot that you cut in the air dam. I found it easiest to NOT attach ANY of the air dam fasteners until I had at least one bolt on each side started. I just hung the air dam on this tab, jacked the whole thing into place, fiddled and hammered until I got a couple bolt holes lined up, and THEN fastened the air dam back in place. So far, the installation was just irritating and tedious, but no worse than some other auto repair work one might undertake.
Now comes the "bad directions" part. Roadmaster includes some nuts with little wires tacked on so you can hold the nut in place on the blind side of the frame while you run the bolts in to snug them up. I found it useful to run those bolts through the nuts BEFORE doing anything to clear out the paint on the nut threads so they'll start a little easier. The Roadmaster directions supplied with the kit are VERY SPECIFIC (Step 5), stating that the LOWER nut should be put in place first, and then the UPPER. Since the access is through an opening in the UNDERSIDE of the frame, putting the lower bolt in first blocks access to the upper bolt. I followed the instructions on the first side and that is EXACTLY what happened, causing a significant problem. Since my access to the upper bolt was blocked by the installed lower one, I had to twist and fiddle the upper nut into place. When I started to tighten, the little holder wire bent around the lower bolt, and then broke, before nut had not yet snugged down. If you should find yourself in this awkward position, the quickest and simplest solution is to remove the plastic cover from above the frame - right in front of the grill, where a winch would normally mount - and go in from the top with a wrench to grab that spinning nut. When I installed the bolts on the other side, I did the upper one first, and then the lower, and had no such problems. Once you get them snugged down, they'll pretty much hold themselves so you can torque to the proper spec, and you're done.
All in all, this install was MANY times more difficult than the original Roadmaster TWO-PIECE base plate kit for the Jeep Wrangler. Additionally, I don't particularly like the new design anyway, beyond the more difficult install. The huge bar that connects the two brackets (that are independent on the older design) sticks down lower, and reduces clearance in the front a bit. The "EZ twist locks" on the brackets themselves ARE easy to install, though because of clearance with the bar in the kit I have, have to be installed upside down compared with the etrailer video demo. While easy to install, the new hitch point brackets offer no obvious positive visual cue that one can quickly look at when you're hitching up to confirm that they're locked. I guess I'll get used to that, but I don't like it. Though I suppose Roadmaster has done the design work, the new "twist lock" brackets also don't look nearly as durable as the old ones, which simply used a hitch pin to secure the bracket to the piece attached to the frame extension.
A MUCH harder install, and a less obviously robust attachment system than the previous design leaves me wondering where the improvement is in the new design. I already owned a Roadmaster tow bar (and like it), so I didn't have much choice. I've towed my new 2016 Jeep with the new bracket, and got back with the Jeep still securely attached to the tow vehicle, so it DOES work.
Easy to install and everything was already connected. Works great.
very nice unit. Easy to install and top quality product
Great experience, quick shipping, excellent video and instructional references to go along with the products. I did the installation of the product myself and without the text and instructional video's there is no way I would have been 100% successful. These are the extra value add things that make the difference when shopping with etrailer, I will be a return customer. The base plate is of high quality construction and fit perfectly on my 2016 Jeep Wrangler. I use this with the Falcon 2 tow bar for my 2016 Jeep Wrangler - 2014 Fleetwood Bounder motorhome combination.
It worked great for towing my jeep through Yosemite, Sequoia, the southern states and back home to the northwest.
Watched video and installed as shown. Works great and is pretty much invisible when not in use
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