Curt Trailer Hitch Installation - 2018 Ford F-150

Products Featured in this Video

Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver - Custom Fit - Class IV - 2"

221 reviews

Code: C14017

Retail: $405.95

Price:  $237.92

• Trailer Hitch
• Custom Fit Hitch
• Class IV
• 1000 lbs TW
• 10000 lbs GTW

• 12000 lbs WD GTW
• 2 Inch Hitch
• 1200 lbs WD TW
• Concealed Cross Tube
• CURT

This fully welded trailer hitch receiver bolts onto your vehicle's frame with no welding required. Powder coated steel is sturdy and corrosion resistant.

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How to Install a Curt Trailer Hitch on a 2018 Ford F-150

Speaker 1: Today in our 2018 Ford F-150, we're going to take a look at and show you how to install the Curt Custom-Fit Class IV Trailer Hitch Receiver. Offering the two inch by two inch receiver tube opening. The part number is, C14017.Here's what our hitch is going to look like installed. As you can see, we get all the benefits of a Class IV hitch without having to completely change the looks of the back of our truck. We can still keep the real nice clean appearance. Our cross tube remains hidden up here behind the bumper, so you're not going to have to look at that every day when you walk outside.

With it being a Class IV hitch, it has weight ratings. We'll talk about that later, but it still has the two inch by two inch receiver tube opening. That going to make it extremely versatile. Whatever you decide on, you'll want to use the 5/8" diameter pin hole to secure all of those items in place. You want to chose an accessory that rated up to what you're going to be hauling.

You want to make sure that your pin and clip is going to be rated for whatever your trailer weight is, and that it's 5/8 of an inch in diameter.Now, for bike racks and cargo carriers, if you want a locking hitch pin, or if you want an anti-rattle bolt to kind of keep them from moving and shaking around, you can go with a Class III there as long again as it's rated for the weight you're going to be using it with.You've got the nice flush reinforcement collar around the ends. It's going to be just inside the edge of the bumper, so you're not going to have any worries about running into or bumping into it. Compared to the Class III's from Curt, it's going to have a much more robust safety chain connection point area. It's a steel plate. It's going to cover the entire bottom of the receiver tube, giving that extra strength but also giving us a lot more support here if we did have an accidental disconnection.

It's still going to work out just fine with your smaller trailers style hooks, for your small utility trailers. As you can see, it's going to work really well for even the largest of clevis hooks you might have on your trailer.Now with this being a Class IV hitch, when talked earlier about the weight ratings being higher than what we typically get with a Class III. In this case, we have a 1,000 pound tongue weight capacity. So that's the maximum downward pressure we can put at our receiver tube opening. We have a 10,000 pound gross trailer weight rating.

That's going to be the total weight of your trailer, and anything you might load up on it. It's also rated for use with weight distribution, so if you have spring bars, or torsion bars set up, the tongue weight ratings going to go up to 1200 pounds, and the gross trailer weight goes to go up to 12,000 pounds. Just be sure to check the owners manual on your F-150 to see what it's rated for, and go off of whichever sets of numbers are lower.Now, a few measurements you'll find healthful for selecting the proper ball mount, bike rack, or hitch cargo carrier for your application, will be from the ground to the inside top edge of the receiver tube opening. We've got about 18 and 3/4 of an inch. Then from the center of our hitch pin hold to the outermost edge of our bumper, it's going to be about three and a quarter.To begin installation, you'll see we're removed our spare tire. We're going to get that out of the way. That allows us easier access to our connection points for our hitch. Then we want to come right here on the back side of the passenger side frame rail. Just inside from the bumper, and if this ground wire is on your vehicle, you want to remove that. Use a 10 millimeter socket. You want to move the bolt completely from it, and then bend that tap out flat. We'll just tuck that out of the way for now.Now, we've got our U-shaped spacer blocks that we need to put in position, and these are going to go over the whole right above where we removed that ground. You'll place them up there. Just like that, you don't want to cover the ground detachment hole. Then with some tape we can get those held in position. Now, these are going to make sure that we've got a nice flat surface for our hitch to mount to.You'll want to just trim out that center section there, so our bolt will pass through. We'll do the same thing for our driver side. Now, we'll grab one of our pull wires. We want to go in that hole, right back here to the back side of the frame. Just like that. We'll pull that out, and we'll put on a square hole spacer block, and we're also going to thread our bolt on. We're going to place the spacer block in the frame. We just want to work that spacer block in the frame rail, gently pull on our wire, and guide our bolt in. Then we want to make sure that they engage one another, and then we can kind of push from the back there and help our bolt through. Then we'll let the whole thing just kind of rest right back in the frame rail.Now, we're going to do that same thing on this hole location, using this as our access hole. So we'll take another square hole spacer block, and we need that just to rest up there for now. This side plate on our hitch is going to come up and that'll be sandwiched between it. Then we'll head over the the passenger side and repeat that process there.With the help of an extra set of hands, we'll get our hitch lifted up into position. You want to place your pull wires through the hitch from the outside towards the middle. Then kind of pull the slack out of them, and gently lift our hitch up into position. Then we'll draw our bolts through and our hitch will actually rest on those.Once you get your pull wires removed you want to put a flange mount on each of your bolts. Now, we want to go through and snug down all of our hardware, and we can torque it to the specifications listed on our instructions. We'll take our ground wire, and we're going to install our bolt through that ring terminal, and then we'll thread it right back into the hole it came out of originally.Once you get your spare tire back up in place, that's going to complete our installation of the Curt Custom-Fit Class IV Trailer Hitch Receiver. Part number, C14017, on our 2018 Ford F-150.