Today on our 2010 volkswagen routan we’re going to take a look at and show you how to install the draw-tite custom fit trailer hitch receiver this is a class 2 inch and a quarter opening part number is 36 455 here you can see what the hitch is going to look like once we’ve got it installed on the vehicle really nice clean look there’s not a whole lot that comes down to make it look any different than a you know a regular stock vehicle of course we’re going to have our tow chains our safety chain loops here going to take a standard inch and a quarter pin that is provided so you won’t have to pick that up see there’s a collar that goes around the end of the hitch here that’s going to give us that additional weight capacity it’s going to be a 300 pound tongue weight or a 3,500 pound gross trailer weight so that’s going to allow us to do a lot of the cargo carriers the bike racks ball mounts but you do want to look into your owner’s manual on the Volkswagen and see what kind of tongue maximum tongue weight rating or trailer weight rating that they have and just use whichever of those are the lowest now a couple of measurements that you can use in helping you select your cargo carriers your ball mount to your bike racks are going to be from the center of the hitch pinhole to the outermost edge of the bumper we’re looking at about four and a quarter inches then from the ground from the inside top edge of our receiver tube it’s about 13 and a quarter inches now before we get started we’ll go over the tools that we’re going to need it’s a really really easy installation you’re going to need a 13 millimeter socket a 15 millimeter socket an 18 millimeter socket of course you’ll need a socket wrench and a torque wrench maybe a larger Phillips screwdriver just to kind of use as a hitch pin aligner sometimes you need it sometimes you don’t but a really easy basic installation we’re going to start by dropping down the exhaust here before we do that we always put a just a safety strap or along the bottom to kind of support some of the weight here and then we’ve got three bolts to remove let’s start at the back and go forward just in front of your small tail pipe here at the very back there’s an exhaust hanger there’s a 13 millimeter head bolt right here that we’re going to remove will remove the one located just behind the tail are the muffler here in the middle it’s located right there now retain all of your bolts we’re going to be
reusing those to put the exhaust back up and then finally the last one it’s located to the passenger side of that muffler that’s in the middle now with that out the way it will be resting on our strap and we’ll just give that some slack as you can see it’s still supported slightly but just for safety now we’re going to remove the bolt that requires an 18 millimeter socket right here you want to be careful of the airline of the AC line here we don’t want to do any damage to that will be reusing that so we’ll set it aside and we’re also going to remove the one here at the very back now this one’s going to require a 15 millimeter socket and of course we’ll be saving these for reuse now we can go over to the driver’s side we’ve got three bolts to take care of their we’ll start with the two here in the front these are going to be 18 millimeter you’ll see once I get these two out that nut plate it kind of kicks over just a little bit so that’s where we’ll be putting that screwdriver in and then just kind of prying over to get those holes to line back up and then we’ll remove the last one here at the rear which is going to be a 15 millimeter socket now you notice our AC line that runs right here we talked about it when we pulled the bolt this is going to require just adding on this little piece of loom here it’s been provided by the manufacturer and this is going to just go around our line and just give us a little bit of protection now we’re going to put our hitch into place it’s a good idea to get a buddy or get an extra set of hands even if he’s not your buddy to help you hold it up into place and we’re just going to start the driver’s side or the passenger side first we’ll be using this hole and this whole this is the one that are our smaller bolt goes through this is the one our larger goes through just guide it out we want to be careful that airline we talked about and then get our bolt thread it in there get you know a good five six seven threads on it and then we can allow that to come down and just rest on that bolt while we go over and get our driver’s side taken care of now this is where our alignment tools going to come into place you will plug that in that setback hole there and kind of pull that over and help us line this hole up now that we’ve got that started we can let that come on down grab our bolt to the front get that in place and then finally we will reinstall the one here in the front now this was
just used for that alignment tool just to kind of give us a spot to put it in there and pry and get it lined up and then we’ll bring our last small bolt in here on the passenger side and get it started all right now let’s take a quick look to be sure we have our hitch centered and then we’ll go through and tighten our bolts down and we’ll do the same thing over here but remember we’ve just got the two now we’ll grab our torque wrench and torque our hardware down to specification and of course we also want to torque the one we removed to aid us now we’ll use the factory hardware that we removed earlier and reinstall our exhaust hangers here then we’ll remove our strap and our hitch is ready for operation with everything secure that completes today’s installation of the draw-tite custom fit class three receiver hitch part number 36 455 on our 2010 volkswagen routan you
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