How to install receiver hitch on any vehicle at home Sprinter Van Hitch install/ spare tire removal!

hey guys this josh Tony Ridge farmer welcome to the farm blog we're here on the farm we've got our new Sprinter van if you haven't seen that video boom I'll put it right there we got our new Sprinter van I think it'll be right there you know I'd be right there I don't know be up top there somewhere anyhow we got us a new Sprinter van okay this is a 2016 Mercedes Sprinter and as the four-cylinder i-4 DS I'm getting 24 to 27 miles to the gallon out of this thing it's SuperDuper cool we got a new toy to go on the Sprinter van today it's not very exciting it's a trailer hitch we're going to put the trailer hitch on the Sprinter van today show you how to do it if you've never put a trailer hitch on a vehicle before it's fairly easy and it's fairly straightforward this will kind of give you a little overview a little basis we'll take two or three minutes out of your day and you'll learn how to put a trailer hitch on so come along with me guys we'll show you what we're doing with the van today we're getting ready for a road trip we're going to go see some other guys we're going to go see some other vloggers I've contacted you already if you don't know me you'll know me soon enough guys let's put this hitch on all right whoo [Music] oh how this thing came to us via FedEx it is heavy heavy heavy heavy the guys don't judge me on my dirty disgusting garage okay it is a mess in here all this equipment all this stuff I've got to go through it but it's been so doggone hot this is a pressing issue I need to get this hitch on here before we go on a road trip it's going to be awesome but I can clean the garage when it gets cool when it gets to be fall time clean up after yourself don't be like me always put your tools away I try to do that but clean up after yourself we got a mess in this garage and I'm ashamed of it whoo hope I didn't kick the paint no the packaging was pretty good on this thing good but it's set out in the rain so this may be a two-man job or a two man and woman job you can get your wipeout teach you how to do this stuff or get your husband out off the couch and teach him how to do this stuff if you're interested in working on your own vehicle guys you can save a lot of money working on your own vehicle this stuff is very simple basically I'm going to undo four or six bolts both this guy in after I get him unwrapped is really really wrapped up tight and we'll bolt it right onto the Sprinter van and then we'll have something we can put our bike rack or we can tow a little trailer with so we've got it all unwrapped looks like our nuts and bolts all came right here in this little kit this is the hitch itself we're going to get up underneath the van and check it out and see what it looks like and get this guy mounted up this will be a lot bigger than one you would get for your family sedan or your family truck this thing is very very big very cumbersome very heavy but it's what comes for this better van whoo so the instructions come in this little fancy manual thing here and it says I need a ratchet torque wrench 18 millimeter socket and an 18 millimeter wrench to get this started and this is for the 2007 to 2016 Mercedes or Dodge Freight Mercedes or a Freightliner or a Dodge Sprinter type van it also says Pro time it takes 30 minutes and novice it takes an hour that's cool we'll see how we do and it says difficulty level is moderate we'll see it's probably moderate because it's really heavy on the back here I've got a diagram this little diagram tells everything I need to know don't be afraid to get out and work on your own vehicle guys be a man be a woman being an adult be strong know how a vehicle works don't be afraid to get out here and work on it so guys we've got all our tools together and we're going to go ahead we've got our wrench we got our torque wrench and we've got our socket and I'm just going to use my Dewalt impact to get everything loose here we're going to loosen all the bolts and install this thing just in case you're watching this video to see if you want to do this yourself there aren't very many bolts under here we're going to go underneath this thing mounts basically are two sections that mount and they just go right up to these bolts right here and they just match right up this is the extended bumper and this hitch is designed to mount right up with the extended bumper and come out to about right here that's what the picture showed anyway so we're going to go ahead and put it in very simple we're going to unbolt some bolts and we'll slide them in place here okay while I'm doing this I'm doing my very best to not scratch the crap out of my trailer hitch I don't know if you've driven down the road and seen somebody's old rusty crappy trailer hitch not cool so if we've got the paint on this we're going to touch it up so first things first we're not going to be able to fit our wrench up in here without pulling the spare tire down I'm going to see what a pain-in-the-butt it is to pull the spare tire down so it's probably a blessing I'm going to have to pull the spare tire down this guy right here I've never done it before I don't even know how to do it so I'm going to learn how to do that that way at some point I'm going to get a flat tire and if I need to change it and I'm in the mud somewhere I'll know exactly what I'm doing you want to be a homesteader you want to be smart put on your own things okay be smart be a man be a woman be an adult learn how to work on stuff learn how things work it's a smart thing to do one day you may not have somebody to help you so getting the spare tire out of the Sprinter van is like Rubik's Cube I think I figured it out right here there's a little tab and you take a screwdriver and you pop that tab up and underneath there is a bolt there's one on each side and your tire wrench fits on there but we've got an impact wrench so we'll loosen those bolts and the spare tire should drop kind of a difficult design normally you you wouldn't have something like this the tool kit does come with a flat tip screwdriver so you can pop those little tabs up so that's good we'll pop this tire down now this is now loose we can raise that up and drop the tire oh this full-size spare is huge cover the pain then full-size spare is heavy very heavy so now we've got our spare tire out of the way we can go on and loosen our bolts where our bumper mount okay lefty loosey righty tighty we'll get it done so there's six bolts total that we take this out with once we take them out this bumper will support itself it won't fall down on you okay okay so all six bolts are out and you can see it just gives us a little pliability right here and basically we going to take the hitch slide it up in there run a bolt through on one side run a bolt through on the other side and then it comes with an extra bolt so you have four bolts on each side on the hitch and they're getting dirty guys this is the manual labor portion of our install this thing's pretty darn heavy just so you know so I know I'm going for my bottom right bolt here and I've got that guy slid in there I'm going to start my nut on this so it doesn't fall on my head okay then I'm going to go to the other side and I'm going to slip it up and slide I wish I could show you this but I can't run a camera and do this at the same time boom the trick is get one bolt started on this side and go over the other side and run a bolt through put a nut on it and you're good let me take you over here and show you so here's our bolts that were lifted I ran this bolt through I'll take you around the back side over here and right there so we just ran it out you got four total bolts that go in here so we'll run all four of those bolts in and snug it up what I did was slide this bolt in and then put the nut in on the other side over here just to hold it in place so it didn't fall down on my head this is it guys this is it it's almost install it's almost completely done it's awesome we'll put our bolts in torque them into place just like the manual says to do and boom the hitch is in hitch is ready I'm not running the electrical today I'll run the electrical at some point but I'm not going to run it today so the kit comes with a shim like this and a bolt and a nut for each side so it comes with two of those so guys I'm going to go ahead and finish up this install then I'm going to talk to you a little bit there's a problem and I'm going to show you that there's a problem I'm going to have to go to the exhaust shop and have some work done I'll show you so if you don't have a torque wrench you got a really really really wrench down on things you should have a torque wrench if you don't have one just go buy one it's cheap I'll post a link down below to a good inexpensive torque wrench that's your 79 foot-pounds that's what you're listening for yeah baby so our install is complete I'm going to take you over here I'm going to show you something there's an issue guys there's a clearance issue here so there is the newly installed hitch there's the exhaust pipe it drops right there not cool I don't have to get some exhaust work done we need to bring this out past this right here okay so the final thing we're going to do is we're going to tighten our spare back up I'm going to look underneath here while we tighten make sure we're nice and snug this takes the 18 millimeter also same as the bolts for the bumper and the bolts for the [Music] hitch so here is a quick look at the hitch that's what it looks like underneath pretty nice that's what it looks like from behind nice job very happy with it so guys in quick review we have the th sprint o 7c three five eight pause it right now if you want to see the model number I'll post a link down there for an amazon link to purchase this I think it was around 150 bucks something like that you need a torque wrench okay you need to tighten these bolts to 79 foot-pounds it's an 18 millimeter bolt you're going to need two wrenches you're going to need a socket if you have an impact driver bring that it's easier if you pull the spare tire you might as well just go in and take the time to pull the spare tire it takes four minutes pull it out and make your life so much easier we're going to take our tub towels we're going to pull out a couple towels here you guys have never used this product I'm not sponsored by them I don't care I don't care if you do use them my hands are absolutely disgusting I'm a nurse okay guys I work in a hospital you don't want your nurse to have disgusting hands I'm going to tell you that right now so we take our tub of towels and we wipe our hands clean and we're done if you have some rubber gloves you can wear while you're doing this if you work as a professional or something like that you don't want to get gross hands I suggest using them because this our van right there is fairly yucky back there that's the rear of the vehicle something that we did not expect was the exhaust so we've got an exhaust issue a clearance issue of about that much I may be able to get a Bolton item but I'd rather go on and get it done right so we'll go to an exhaust shop around here in the country doesn't cost that much get somebody to weld a little piece in to extend that tailpipe on out hopefully it won't melt our bumper we shall see I either that or I'll just cut the tailpipe and both on an extension so it brings it out about that much past our hitch if I leave it the way it is it'll probably be just fine but I think could make our hitch get discolored thanks for watching the vlog this is a farm vlog today kind of an instructional farm vlog I appreciate you click that like button I hope you appreciate me taking the time to show you how to do this don't forget to subscribe to the channel check out some of our other stuff got much more videos to come years and years of good stuff for you to take a look at so thanks a lot guys follow us on our farm adventure alright bring him in last year sweet and me Oh Deary Oh [Music]