Today on our 2010 volkswagen routan we’re going to be taking a look at then showing you how to install the hidden hitch custom fit class 3 trailer hitch this is a 2 inch opening part number on it is 87 451 this is what the hitch is going to look like once you get it installed in the vehicle it’s a really nice clean look there’s no trimming of the rear fascia required it just kind of rest right on top so we don’t have to worry about changing the factory setup there’s a dual pin as you can see this is going to accept the J pen which is a stabilization and also a locking device the main bracing that you can see is hidden up here underneath the car so it’s a very small exposed area really clean-looking of course you’re going to have your safety chain loops on either side and with it being a 2-inch hitch that’s going to give us lots of options as far as the bike racks the cargo carriers and things like that are concerned now the hitch is going to offer a 400-pound maximum tongue weight rating and a 4,000 pound gross trailer weight rating but you do want to refer into the instruction man or owners manual of your route on and see what it’s rated for and just go off of whichever of those weights are the lowest let’s go over a couple measurements that are going to help you in selecting your ball mounts cargo carriers or bike rack from the center of the hitch pinhole to the outermost edge of the bumper it’s about four and three-quarters of an inch from the ground to the inside top edge of the receiver tube opening it’s about 13 and a quarter 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 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 we’re going to raise the hitch up into position it’s a good idea to get an extra set of hands to kind of help what we’ll do is just guide it right over our exhaust here on this side and we’re going to start one of our bolts we got the support I’m gonna go ahead and start the second one over here so now we can transition over to our driver’s side now to line our hitch pins up we’re going to use the Phillips screwdriver I told you about her in this case we’re going to use a hitch alignment tool let’s just depress that nut plate over far enough to where we can get our bolt started now we’ll go through after taking a quick look to be sure we’ve got our hitch centered and tighten down our hardware now the smaller bolt uses a 15 millimeter the larger bolt uses an 18 millimeter be careful when tightening this one down that you don’t pinch your AC line we can go over and take care of the driver side now we’ll switch to our torque wrench and torque all of our hardware down now with everything torque down to the specifications in the instructions we’ll start replacing the bolts for our exhaust hangers then we’ll pull down our safety strap and our hitch is in place ready for use with our exhausts put back in
place that’s going to complete today’s look at the hidden hitch custom fit class 3 trailer hitch part number 87 451 on our 2010 volkswagen routan
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