Several of you over the last several months have asked me for details of how I built my trailer hitch. I keep forgetting to take photos when I've got the bumper-cover off. So this is the next best thing.
I started with this:
You can see how that went together. Worked great... until those aluminum tabs broke-off. After that it was just the pull-out of the bolts, and I didn't trust that at all. So I had to come up with a better idea.
So here's a spare rear bumper I had. Imagine it with those bumperette brackets gone.
I cut the red square out, front / rear. (sized correctly for the receiver, of course). I then moved the threaded insert for the tow-hook several inches to the side (that's the red line with a circle at the end).
Then I took some 1"x1"x3/16" angle, two pieces approximately 24" long, and put one on the bottom front and one on the top rear (faint blue lines) Then I welded them to the receiver. And then I thru-bolted them (down from the top, and up from the bottom) to the aluminum bumper.
So where's the weak-point now? The anchors for the bumper, to the body.
The real kicker on this is that you won't have access to the hole for the pin, so you have to have the fancy-schmancy draw-bar that locks from the front. I paid around $150-ish for mine, with a ball. as I recall. When I'm towing, I put the tow-hook into the tow-hook hole and attach my safety chain there.
Threaded Mode
