Hitched

We’ve got this little vacation thing coming up in a few weeks. Originally we expected three adults, one child and ONE dog, but CJ appears to think otherwise. Not to mention Abigail will probably need a lot more stuff than we also originally thought.

As you may remember, we did buy a LARGE roof-top carrier at the beginning of the summer, but even that’s not large enough for this crew.

So we looked at renting a min-van to haul everything and everyone. That was cost prohibitive.

We thought about flying Jen and the baby to near our destination and picking them up on our way, but the logistics weren’t all that appealing.

Finally we decided on a hitch.

With a hitch, we could rent/tow a trailer. Opposed to a one-time round trip plane ticket, a hitch could also be used for other adventures in the future. With my Mother & Sister around to help Jen with the baby and a nice rainy Saturday to keep the garage cool, I went after it.

The instructions said an expert could do the job in 35 minutes and a novice 65. I figured I was somewhere in between and shot for 45. No such luck. It probably took me 45 minutes to finally understand the diagrams, then another 20 to realize I didn’t need to do all that the instructions said. Since my hitch fit a number of Subaru model years, the instructions must be written to the lowest common denominator. It turns out I didn’t have to remove the muffler brackets and I didn’t have to locate and remove all the drain plugs to run the bolt wire thingy through one to get in the other. All I had to do was pull up the cargo space  interior (held down by velcro) and access the frame openings via the top of the frame from within the car.

So there are four “contact points” (i.e. bolts) for the hitch. In my first attempt I could only manage two of the four. Hmmm. Let’s try this again. The first two were holes in the frame in which I dropped bolts and spacers to line up and connect to the back of the hitch. The second two “contact points” were the round “tow hook” thingies that hang off the back of the frame just under the bumper. The sides of the hitch were supposed to slide up around these “tow hooks” then a bolt went through them and the hitch. When I tried getting the frame holes to line up, the tow hook holes wouldn’t come close. Realizing the tow hook holes were the least likely “contact points” to be “manipulated”, I started with them and managed to get three of the four to make contact and bolt up.

The fourth was a no-go.

There might have been a heating and bending option, but I don’t really have easy access to a torch anymore. Instead I opted for the old-school hitch installation method and drilled a new hole through the frame.

So now I have bare metal in the frame of my car exposed to the elements that will likely rust. Oh well. I figure that was the least of my concerns. It didn’t fit in the first place because my frame’s probably still bent from my accident two years ago. I just put a new head gasket and everything else in it, and the car’s got 148 thousand miles on it. I could drill holes all through the fenders and it wouldn’t really matter.

I don’t know what the final time was, but I’m sure it went longer than 65 minutes.

Next up was the wiring harness. That was kind of easy. The instructions were fun. They pointed out where the factory wiring harness trailer plug was

but that was it. How and where I was going to run the rest of the trailer wiring was completely up to the imagination of me.

Hmmm. Let’s see. I could cut a hole through the interior trim and dangle it out the tailgate. I could…

Nope that’s no good.

I got to looking around and noticed the interior floor panels had foam padding under them that created channels. If I was crafty enough, I could route the wiring harness behind the interior wall panels and through the floor channels. Tada!

Now the issue was getting it through the body of the car and accessible at the hitch. After some exploration I found two drain plug thingies nearly in-line with each other from the spare tire well to outside just behind the bumper. A little wire splicing and some silicone,

and it worked out great – so far. Again, who cares? The frame is bent and has 148 thousand miles on it. As long as it gets us to our vacation destination and back (can you believe it? how many years ago was it no one would think of driving 10 hours with 3 adults, 2 dogs and an infant while towing a trailer with a car with 148 thousand miles. I’m clearly out of my mind.), we’ll be fine.

– b