Curt Fifth Wheel Kit Installation - 2013 Chevrolet Silverado

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Curt Custom Fifth Wheel Installation Kit for Chevy/GMC - Carbide Finish

306 reviews

Code: C16411-204

Price:  $236.89

• Fifth Wheel Installation Kit
• Custom
• Above the Bed

• CURT

Install your fifth wheel trailer hitch in half the time with this custom bracket kit. Requires less drilling than universal kits and provides a custom fit for your vehicle. Includes everything you need for installation.

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How to Install the Curt Fifth Wheel Kit on a 2013 Chevrolet Silverado

Speaker 1: Today in our 2013 Silverado we're going to be installing CURT's Custom Fifth Wheel Installation Kit, Part Number C16411-204. This fifth wheel rail kit is custom designed to work with your Silverado. It's going to give you nine locations for many different types of fifth wheels. It will work with all of CURT's fifth wheels, and it will work with most modern fifth wheels of other manufacturers. You may have some issues with older fifth wheels from competitors prior to 2003.They're mounted above your bed on your truck and held in place by side brackets attached to the frame. When you're done using your fifth wheel you can take it off, and the rails will remain inside the bed giving you mostly full bed access.There's some minor drilling in the bed required and all the hardware you need to get installed comes included.

We'll show you how to do that now.We'll begin our installation in the back of our truck by measuring out the distance from our tailgate to our first rail. This is the rail that's closer to the cab. Now you're going to want to refer to your instructions to find those appropriate measurements. It's going to vary depending on the length of your truck bed.Once we've got that measured out we're going to mark the outside holes on each side as well as the center hole towards the rear of the vehicle.We'll now drill out each hole that we marked using an 1/8" drill bit as a pilot hole, and then we'll enlarge those to a 9/16" drill bit.We'll now vacuum out all the material that we just drilled out, and to help prevent against corrosion, we're going to use some clear coat on the holes we drilled. That will help just seal them up.To make it easier to install all of our hardware we're going to remove our spare tire.We'll now fish wire through our frame and come out of the access hole.

The access hole's going to be located on the other side near the center here so you may have to push it in and then go around the other side to find the other half and pull it through.Then on our fish wire we're going to place a spacer followed by one of the large carriage bolts. Then we'll just slide that in the frame and we can pull it through on the other side.Now the bolt can go ahead and stay in the frame for now. We don't need to pull it all the way out because we're going to need to get our bracket in position.We're then going to repeat this for our other hole and then both holes on other side.We only got two fish wires in our kit so we're going to complete this entire side before we do our other side.We'll now take our side bracket, run our fish wires through the uppermost holes, slide ones there, and we'll put our bracket into position.Once you've got your bolts pulled through you can take your fish wire off and thread on the larger flange nuts. Be careful not to push your bolts back into the frame after you take your fish wire off.There is a difference between your driver and passenger side bracket. You'll know you have the correct bracket on the correct side if the slanted edge is towards the rear of the vehicle.

The front edge will be rounded where this one will be cut at a slant. That's facing towards the rear, you've got it on the correct side.Now back on top of our bed we're going to line our rail up with the holes that we had drilled out. On the outer holes you're going to place a spacer in between the bed and the rail and drop your carriage bolt down through the hole. We're going to do this for all of our outer holes.Then for our middle bolt hole, since this is on the raised section of our truck bed, we don't need a spacer to fit between there so we can just drop our bolts right down.Now on each of our bolts that run down through we're going to place a spacer washer followed by a flange nut.Then between our spacer and the top of our truck bed we're going to slide in one these slip spacers and now we can tighten it down.We'll now use our fifth wheel to help us line up the holes that we're going to need to drill for our rear bracket. Just set your rear bracket in your truck bed, set your fifth wheel and your front bracket and your rear bracket and that will keep it all lined up and now we can drill out our holes.Instead of using the outside holes like we did in the front, our rear brackets are going to use the holes just the inside by one slot.Once again we're going to be marking the rearmost hole in the center.

This is the one towards the tailgate. We're going to drill each of these markings out now just like we did in the front.We're going to start with a 1/8" drill bit and then enlarge it to a 9/16".Now that we got all of our holes drilled out, we're going to put our fifth wheel back into our rail.We'll now take the same carriage bolts that we used before . These are the smaller ones, and we're going to push those down through each of the holes that we just drilled out.We'll now install our spacers and nuts on our side rails. I think it's easier to slide the square spacer on first with the square hole, thread the nut on, and then we can take our other spacer and this is going to slide between our bracket and our bed.On our rear bracket to get the bolts tightened down on the passenger side, it could be helpful to remove your heat shield here, or you can just take the lip that runs along here, and I'm just going to bend this upward so that way it's out of the way.We can now go back and torque all of our hardware to the specifications found in your instructions. The bolts that are located above the frame between the bed are going to be very difficult to torque. I recommend using a crowsfoot on the end of your torque wrench to be able to do this, and it's still going to be quite difficult even with this setup.All the bolts underneath the bed here are going to torque down using a 3/4" socket.Then we'll torque our side bolts using a 15/16" socket.After you've torqued down all your hardware you can reinstall your spare tire.You now verify that your fifth wheel comes in and out easily and install all of your pins, and you're now ready to hook up your fifth wheel trailer and hit the road.That completes our installation of CURT's Custom Fifth Wheel Installation Kit on our 2013 Chevrolet Silverado.