Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver Installation - 2019 Jeep Cherokee
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How to Install a Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver on a 2019 Jeep Cherokee
Rob: Rob here at etrailer.com. And today we're going to be taking a look at the Curt Class Three Custom Fit Trailer Hitch Receiver on our 2019 Jeep Cherokee. Now, this is what our hitch is going to look like once we have it installed. It's going to have a really clean factory appearance because the Cross Tube is going to be completely hidden behind the bumper. And the only thing we're going to see is that Receiver Tube sticking out. Now it is a Class Three, which means it's going to give us that two inch by two inch receiver tube opening.
And have a really wide variety of options when it comes to accessories. You can put a ball Mount in here, tow a trailer, or if we need to make some room on the inside of our Jeep. We can put a cargo carrier in here. Or if you want to hit the trails, we can put a bike rack in there and take our bikes with us. But However, we're going to be using our hitch, all of our accessories are going to mount to the hitch pin hole here on the side.And the hitch is going to accept the standard 58 pin and clip.
Now, these are not included with the kit, but you can pick them up here at etrailer.com. Along with some locking devices to make sure your accessories are secure. And if we are towing a trailer, obviously we need a spot tuck our safe chains. And we have a loop style here, welded to the bottom of the receiver tube. You can see we've got plenty of room to get most sized hooks on or off.
Now, if you're looking for a hitch, regardless if you're going to be using it for towing or recreational purposes, like a bike rack. You want to make sure that it's up to the task. So as far as the weight ratings go, our hitch is going to have a 675 pound tongue weight. That's mean that maximum downward force at the end of the receiver tube.And to put that in perspective, that's going to be plenty enough to really maximize the carrying capacity of those really large cargo carriers, or carrying a really large bike rack with several bikes on it. Maybe even up to four or five bikes.
Now, as far as the gross trailer weight rating goes, our hitch is going to have a 4,500 pound rating. That's how much it can pull, but that does include the trailer and the load we have on it. The hitch is designed to work weight distribution systems as well. That's going to bump the tongue weight up to 750 pounds and the gross trailer weight rating up to 5,500 pounds. But do you want to double-check your Cherokee's owner's manual because you don't want to exceed the manufacturer's recommended weight.Now, what I really like about our Curt Hitch here, opposed to the other ones that are available. It does have a really nice clean appearance the Cross Tubes hidden behind the bumper. And we're not going to have to do any cutting or drilling to in order to get it installed. The Draw-tite is going to have us cut a little bit on the bottom of our facia here. And the other car that's available is going to have the Cross Tube below the bumper. So I really think this is the best of both worlds. It's going to have a nice clean appearance, but it's also going to be relatively easy to install.Likes to give you a few measurements and these are going to help you when you're looking for accessories for your new hitch. Like a ball Mount, a bike rack, or even a cargo carrier. From the center of the hitch pin holes, the outermost edge of the bumper is right about five and a half inches. That measurement's going to help you out when you're looking at folding accessories to make sure you have enough room. And they're not going to come in contact with the rear bumper. And from the ground to the inside top edge of the receiver tube opening is right about 13 inches. Now that measurement is going to help you when you're looking for a ball Mount to find the appropriate rise or drop to match up to your trailer. But also at that height, I would recommend a bike rack or cargo carrier that has a raised shank. That way we get a little bit more ground clearance out of it.Now that we've seen what our hitch looks like and gone over some of the features, let's get it installed together. To begin an installation when it comes to the back of your Jeep, and we need to lower our exhaust down. But if we look at our exhaust tips at the end of the muffler here. We're going to see that the pipe actually goes into this tip. So it's not going to allow it to come down. So we're going to follow our muffler and the piping forward towards the front of our vehicle. We'll see, we're going to have this clamp here just forward to that muffler, right at the rear axle. We're going to need to disconnect this, so we can actually pull the muffler assembly out. But we want to make sure that our exhaust is supported before we do that.So I'm going to take a support strap. And am going to run it on the forward section of the exhaust. So this part doesn't hang down once we removed the back section. So we just want to find a solid point to connect it to. I'm actually going to go towards the back and across. That way I know it's going to be underneath this section of the pipe. Now, if we move back towards the muffler. On each side we're going to have a hanger that's holding them in place and bolted to the bottom of the frame. Going to grab a 13 millimeter socket and pull both of those bolts out. And we're going to have two on each sides. We'll pull out the other side as well.Now your muffler will drop down. But again it's going to stop on those tips at the back of the bumper. It's going to come to this clamp here. With a 15 millimeter socket, we're going to loosen up that nut that's on top. Now, when you loosen this up, you don't need to fully remove that nut. You just want it to open up some. If you need to, you can take a screwdriver or something. Just kind of open up that clamp a bit. Make it a little bit easier to move, kind of break it free from the pipe itself.The back of this joint here, it will be extremely tight. So it'll help. If you have somebody in the back of the muffler supporting it, wiggling it back and forth. And you can tap it, but make sure to use a rubber mallet. Now, once you have enough of it coming out, you do want to hold onto it because that back end is going to drop down. So we'll make sure that it's not going to fall on us. And we'll wiggle the pipe until we can get it to all come out. And once we have it all out and disconnected, we're going to pull back towards the front of the car. So we can get the entire muffler assembly to come out. You just want to watch those hangers, there on the back. And again, I'd probably would help to have an extra set of hands. Because it is rather large and heavy. So we'll set this aside where it won't get damaged.Now that we have the muffler assembly out of the way. You can see, we have plenty of room to work under here. Now we're over here on the driver's side frame rail. Now you may have this wire attached using some clips on the frame. We need remove this out of the way, because our hitch is actually going to sit directly against the frame. But we don't want to crush those wires. So I'm going to take a trim panel tool. Use a Flathead screwdriver or whatever you have. And you just want to pop those clips out of the frame. Do the one on the bottom, the one on the side. Then we're going to have another one, that's going to be towards the outside of the frame right here. We'll take that out and for now, I'm just going to move it out of the way. So it won't interfere with our hitch. Just going to push it towards the back. Just move it out of the way for now.Now, if we look at the edge of our frame rail. Again, we're on the driver's side and this is the outside of the frame rail. We had this seam tape. Now a lot of times the seam tape can interfere with the hitch. So we just need to scrape some of it off. So it's going to be nice and flush with the frame. And we don't need to take any more off just on the outside of the frame. So I'm going to be using a putty knife. You can use a knife, a scraper. Pretty much anything you can get in there, just to take some of that sealer off.Once you scrape one side, we're going to go over to the other side and do the same thing. Now that we have that removed, we're going to grab one of our pull wires. And we'll find a large square hole and our oval hole. We're going to take the coiled end. And I'm going to put a slight bend in it. I'm going to feed it into the oval hole. I'm going to go towards the square hole opening. And the main goal here is to have it come out. Now, we'll put another bend in it, to make sure that my wire is coming out of both ends. And that it doesn't fall all the way through the frame. We'll grab one of our square hole spacer blocks. Going to feed it over the wire, push it into the frame. And we'll grab our carriage bolt. We'll thread it onto the end of the wire, push it in the frame.And we're going to pulling our pull wire until the bolt drops down through. Now we have a hole on the side of the frame. That's going to be closest to the back. Right about here, but on the outside of the frame. We're going to repeat that process feeding our cold end in, putting our hardware in place. And having it come out through the outside of the frame. I do suggest you leave your pull wires on until after we get the hitch in place. So now that we have our two fasteners towards the back end. We're going to get our third fastener in. And our third faster is going to actually the same hole we used to get our Harbor in place. This going to be a little bit different process. We'll take our spacer block and our coiled end, slide it over. We'll take our carriage bolt, we're going to thread it in place.And we want to push our bolt in first, followed by the block. Then we'll pull down and let the bolt drop through the spacer block. Now that we have all three in on this side, we're going to repeat the same process on the other side, in the exact same mounting locations. Now with some extra set of hands we're going to lift our hitch up. We're going to feed our pull wires from the top down. We're going to make sure you grab the correct ones. They're going through the right hole. And for that bolt that's on the side. That's going to be going through the side of our hitch. I'm going to go ahead and push it in to the frame, just a bit. So that it can clear when I lift it up.And we'll lift our hitch up. And once you have all your bolts going through your hitch, we can remove our pull wire. We're going to grab one of the flange nuts from our kit. And you want to get at least a loosely secured on one bolt. That way the hitch will support itself and we don't have to worry about it falling. But each one of our bolts are going to take one of these flange nuts. We're going to come back with a three quarter inch socket. And we're going to tighten up all my flange nuts. I'm going to come back with that same three quarter inch socket and a torque wrench. Am going to torque, all my hardware down to the specified amount in the instructions.You want to make sure you go back and repeat that for all your remaining hard ware. Now with an extra set of hands, we're going to lift our exhaust back up. Kind of angle it down so we can clear the hangers. Then we'll push the tailpipes into the exhaust tips. So we can get it back far enough. Till we can get our two pipes to line up. And then we can slide our muffler back into position and tighten up that clamp. Now, before you tighten up that nut on the clamp, you're going to make sure that that pipe is all the way seated onto the other pipe. There's actually the little dimple here. That's sticking out, that'll stop it. So you want to make sure that pipe's pushed up all the way against it. We'll grab our socket, we'll tighten up the nut on top. Now we're going to replace those four screws that are our exhaust hangers. Then finally we can remove the exhaust draft from earlier. And that'll finish up your installation and your look at the Curt Class Three Custom Fit Trailer Hitch Receiver on our 2019, Jeep Cherokee..
Info for this part was:
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Test Fit:
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Robert G.
10/2/2020
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