etrailer | Curt Front Mount Trailer Hitch Receiver Installation - 2018 Chevrolet Silverado 1500

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Full transcript: www.etrailer.com/tv-install-c...
Hey, guys, it's Jake here with etrailer. Today, we're gonna be taking a look at and I'm gonna show you how to install the CURT Front Mount Trailer Hitch on your 2018 Chevy Silverado 1500. Adding a front mount trailer hitch to the front of your Silverado is gonna allow you to carry a various amount of items, that being bike racks, cargo carriers, or if you'd like to put a winch in there. A lot of people will use these to move trailers around. If you've got a tight space on your property and you can't quite get it in with backing the trailer in, you can always hook up a ball mount to the front of your hitch and pull it in forward. This front mount trailer hitch is gonna feature a 500-pound max tongue weight capacity.
That is you pressure pushing down on the inside of the receiver tube. So if you're moving trailers around or if you have a cargo carrier on the front, that's what you wanna keep in mind. Don't put any more than 500 pounds of downward pressure on it. It's going to have a gross trailer weight rating of 5,000 pounds. So if you're moving trailers around, you wanna stay under that amount, and then it's gonna have a 9,000-pound straight line pull.
That is the amount of pressure that you can use to pull with it if you have a winch or if you're using it as a pull point, if you're using it to have somebody else pull you out, then you should be more than fine because this truck does not weigh 9,000 pounds. Now, the hitch will feature a 2x2-inch hitch receiver tube opening, which is going to fit most of our accessories. That is gonna be the most common hitch size. It'll have a standard 5/8-inch hitch pin hole. The hitch pin and clip does not come with the kit, but we've got plenty on our website if you need one.
From the ground to the top inside of the receiver tube, it's gonna be about 13 1/2 inches. And for your ground clearance, from the ground to the bottom of the hitch, it's gonna be 11 inches. This particular vehicle has a leveling kit on it. So I'd say without the leveling kit, it'd be around nine inches 'cause it looks like it's about two inches higher in the front than factory. From the center of our hitch pin hole to the outermost part of our bumper is gonna be about...
8 1/2 inches or so. That is a very, very long distance. So if you look into a cargo carrier or something like that, you wanna make sure it's got a decent shank on the front. And there's not many accessories that are gonna fold up to the front of the vehicle, but in that case you'll just take them off and throw them in the bed of your truck. Now, as far as appearance goes, obviously we are missing the front plastic valance on here. Typically, the entire cross tube is hidden behind it, and the hitch receiver tube will go up inside the plastic a little bit. So you'll have to trim out a little bit, and it looks really good on the front of your Silverado. But that plastic valance is missing. And this particular one is gonna be using this for a snow plow, so it doesn't really bother them 'cause it's gonna be a whole plow assembly in the way. Now, as far as the installation goes, it's pretty straightforward installation. I'd say the hardest part is probably drilling the four holes that you will have to into your frame rails. You wanna make sure that you get those lined up pretty good because otherwise the bolts will not drop down through the hitch. But with that being said, let's go ahead and pull them in the shop and show you how we did it. Now, the first step in your installation is going to be to mark out and cut out your plastic fascia under here. As you can see, ours is not here, so we're not gonna have to do that. But if you do still have yours, I highly recommend just doing the next step first, which is lifting the hitch up into place and seeing if you will even need to mark that. If you don't have a super long one, I know from year to year they kind of change those aerodynamic plastic pieces under here. So I would lift a hitch up into place, see if it even makes contact. If it does, then you can go ahead and trim it. According to the instructions, they want it to be three inches wide from the center, three inches wide and an inch and a half into the bumper. Now, with an extra set of hands, we're gonna lift our hitch up into place. You want to get this forward most hole lined up with the access hole, Get it centered in our frame rail and then mark out our holes. Use a paint marker or a center punch to be able to mark those. Now, we're gonna use a variety of bits to step up to eventually a 17/32 hole where we just marked ou