Draw-Tite Max-Frame Trailer Hitch Receiver Installation - 2017 GMC Acadia
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How to Install the Draw-Tite Max-Frame Trailer Hitch Receiver on a 2017 GMC Acadia
Today on our 2017 GMC Acadia, we'll be installing the Draw-Tite Class III Max-Frame Trailer Hitch Receiver, part number 76023. This Class III hitch has our industry standard 2-inch by 2-inch opening here. It has a nice collar welded around the outside edge of it to give a nice finished appearance. We have a nice, large opening easy-to-use safe chain noose right here where we'll be able to easily hook up any safety chain there without a problem. Over to the left, we have our wiring harness bracket that's welded on the bottom of our hitch so you can mount your 4-way flat or your 7-way RV or whatever other trailer connector you have for your vehicle. We have two holes here on the side of our hitch. The one towards the front of the vehicle is our standard 5/8ths-inch diameter hitch pin hole to secure our ball mount bike rack or cargo carrier or any other hitch-mounted accessory we may have.
Towards the rear, we have our J-pin stabilization device hole so you can use the J-pin stabilization device on that in order to take some of that noise, shake, play and rattle out of what's inserted in your receiver such as your bike rack or your cargo carrier. One nice thing that I like about this hitch is that it is tucked up completely behind our bumper cover so when we're walking behind the vehicle to load our hatch, we don't have to worry about contacting it with our shin or any other part of our leg. This hitch features a 675-lb. max gross tongue weight rating and a 4,500 max gross trailer weight rating. It does support the use of weight distribution, but those numbers stay the same. Now for a few measurements to better assist you in choosing any hitch-mounted accessory you may need, such as a ball-mount bike rack or cargo carrier, you're looking at about 6 inches from the center of the 5/8ths inch diameter hitch pin hole to the rearmost part of the back bumper and about 18 inches from the ground to the top of the Class III 2-inch receiver opening. We're going to start by removing our fascia door right here. There's 2 7-millimeter screws to hold it on.
There is one on both sides of our fascia door. We'll set this aside. Now we'll undo our fascia support screws. There's one on both sides of where our fascia door was. Okay, with our hardware now removed down below, we can come up, open our hatch and remove our hardware inside the hatch area. On both sides of our hatch, there are 2 T-15 screws we'll remove.
We'll take out this plastic thing here, too, so it doesn't fall. We'll set these aside. Now we'll pop off this black cover here. You can use a flat-head screwdriver or a trim panel tool. Behind that, you'll find a 7-millimeter bolt.
There's one on both sides. We'll go ahead and remove that one too. Now we'll repeat the same process on the other side. Now we're on the passenger side of our vehicle in the rear wheel well. 1, 2, 3, 4 screws that we need to remove with the T-15 driver. Now we'll use a trim panel tool and we'll pry out this trim in our wheel well. We'll set this aside. Now we have 2 7-millimeter bolts that hold our fascia onto the vehicle. We'll remove these and we'll repeat the same process on the other side. We'll remove our bumper cover, just pry it off. Now on our driver's side of our vehicle, before we walk away from our fascia, we need to disconnect our wiring harness for our rear parking sensors. We'll take this black piece here, hold onto it, and we'll pull the wiring harness away. We'll find its red lock tab, pull it back and press on this tab here and work our connector apart. When disconnected, we'll pull the wiring harness off the stud right here. Okay, with that disconnected, we can set our fascia aside now. Now with our fascia removed, we go underneath the car again. We're going to support our exhaust because we'll be removing the brackets when we install the hitch. We'll just use a strap here, go to the lower control arms and we'll put the strap up in place nice and tight. That will support our exhaust so it doesn't get damaged. We'll remove the hardware that holds our bumper in place. Our exhaust hanger is part of that hardware, so we'll start with these 15-millimeter nuts on the top here first and the 15-millimeter bolts on the bottom. We'll pull the hanger up and slide it down and repeat the same process on the other side. We'll just pull the bumper off and set it aside. Now we'll remove our fascia support brackets. On our driver's side, there's a wiring harness that's attached to one. We'll get our trim panel tool underneath and pop it off. Our fascia support brackets are held in place with two 7-millimeter screws. We'll set these aside. With these removed, we can now install our hitch. We'll raise our hitch up and hang it on the studs our bumper is bolted on. With our hitch hanging on the studs, we can go ahead and reinstall our bumper now. We'll reinstall our nuts and do the same on the other side. Now this wiring harness that was clipped to our fascia support tab, we don't have anything to hold it on anymore because our fascia support tab's not being reinstalled. To prevent this from rattling around, let's take a zip tie here and we'll secure this to the wiring harness that's hooked on the car. You have to provide your own zip tie. We do have these available on our website if you'd like to purchase some. With that up there, we won't have to listen to it rattling now. We'll clip off the excess zip tie. Now we'll put our exhaust hanger bracket back in place and reinstall our bottom bolts. We'll do the same on the other side. Once we have all our bolts and nuts installed, we'll tighten them down. We'll now torque it to the amount specified in the instructions. All right, now that our hitch it torqued down, before we reinstall our bumper cover, if we're going to be adding trailer wiring to our vehicle, now would be a great time to do it. Right now with an extra set of hands, we'll put our bumper cover back into position. First, we'll make sure we reinstall our wiring harness here and plug it back in. Once you hear it snap and you can't pull back on it, you know it's secure. Slide the locking tab back down. Push this back under the stud. Push the other wiring under the stud down here, too. Now we'll slide it back around our taillights and push in on the fender so it snaps in. We'll reinstall our hardware to hold our bumper on now. We'll repeat the same process on the other side. We'll reinstall our screws, slide our trim piece back on. There's a tab that goes into the fascia on this notch right here, so you insert that into there. Line your guide pins back up and snap it back in place. We'll reinstall our 4 screws. Okay, with all our 4 screws reinstalled, we'll go and repeat the same process on the other side. With our install complete, we'll now remove our strap that we used to support our exhaust and that completes our installation of our Draw-Tite Max-Frame Class III Trailer Hitch Receiver, part number 76023 on our 2017 GMC Acadia.
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Wes W.
3/17/2019
After installing this hitch on my 2017 Acadia, the fascia hitch cover will not fit over the hitch receiver. Is this normal? I thought I would still be able to use the hitch cover after installing the hitch.