I installed my u-haul hitch this morning.

Played with the bolt vs. hole issue for a while before I decided to avoid both drilling and grinding if possible.

Finally decided to use the Honda tire lever to open the holes a bit, as pictured below.

http://home.earthlink.net/~cdkrall/images/bar.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~cdkrall/images/fronthole.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~cdkrall/images/hole.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~cdkrall/images/rearbarinhole.jpg

The rearmost holes can be done vertically, the frontmost horizontally. The metal bends easily. This preserves most of the anticorrosion coating and requires no power tools. It does remove some paint from the tire tool...&^)

The hitch's "ears" were too tight on the frame, so I whacked them with a rubber mallet, more than I needed to, since the metal bent easily here as well. Tightening the bolts pulled the ears back against the frame very nicely.

I was also able to install the hitch without disturbing the exhaust. Another poster's suggestion worked well, and I'll expand on it a bit.

-I threaded the wire and bolt for the rear passenger side first, left the wire hanging out of the hole.

-Got a piece of thin dowel about 8 inches long, set it down under the driver's side.

-Holding the hitch at an angle, so that the driver's side end was pointing out past the bumper, I slipped the hitch in between the exhaust and the frame on the passenger side, then lifted up the driver's side and pinned it with the dowel in the rear hole.

-Back on the passenger's side, threaded the wire, and installed both passenger's side bolts and nuts, then threaded front driver's side, removed dowel from the rearmost hole on that side, and installed that bolt as well.

After that it's just a matter of tightening the u-bolt first, then the outer nuts.

Just finished installing my U-haul hitch. Didn't even see this until now, but I installed the passenger side rear most bolt first as well.

I used a Craftsman large screw driver to widen the 4 openings to fit the plates and fender bolts. Only thing I was not very happy with was not being able to properly torque down the two rear most bolts. My SnapOn torque wrench and Craftsman socket driver heads were too large to fit into that area.

I ended up using a wrench and just tighthening it as much as possible, should be pretty close to 50 ft/lbs.

I actually connected the U-bolt loosely and didn't tighten it until after the other 4 bolts were torqued down.

[quote:c2060b8bfb="spdrcr5"]Only thing I was not very happy with was not being able to properly torque down the two rear most bolts. My SnapOn torque wrench and Craftsman socket driver heads were too large to fit into that area.

I ended up using a wrench and just tighthening it as much as possible, should be pretty close to 50 ft/lbs.[/quote:c2060b8bfb]

Same problem here: I've just got a mental note to torque things up with a to-be-purchased socket before towing anything...

...probably not the best situation, but I figure I got them on pretty tight.

-brendan

Brendan, the problem is that there aren't any tools, other than wrenches that can fit into that area. I tried multiple socket drivers and none finished. I could not even get my 3/8" driver into the area... The socket barely fit... You need a deep socket because of the length of the fender bolt sticking through about 3/4" past the nut.

Honda could have designed that area better considering they obviously designed it to accept a hitch... poor engineering on their part.

Have you seen how the Honda hitch installs? Is it similar to how the U-Haul installs with the 1x2 plate and 1.5" fender bolt being fished through the back of the rail?

What I did was use an 18mm combo wrench on the nut, then slipped the round end of a 17mm combo over the open end of the 18, linking them together for added oomph.

I feel confident that they are torqued sufficiently... :D

Also found a way to run the wiring harness without cutting, by running the plug wire out through the tailight and then down through the rear quarter panel and along inside of the bumper.

It comes up a bit short, but this will keep it from hanging down; I'm going to keep an "extension cord" for it in the spare tire well.

The BSAOhio people are great to work with, and the part is nicely made.

Why, oh why, didn't they not supply a carriage bolt with a 1/8" smaller head? I mean, that couldn't have been that hard!

FWIW, the rear hole is larger and you'll do well to install all hardware through the rear hole. Creative bending of a coat hanger or other wire can make a tool you can use to pull the front hardware through the rear hole.

The ticket is to use a rat-tail rasp to make a small "notch" in the lower portion of the hole. It only takes about 1/8" to get the bolt heads through. The plates fit through just fine by themselves.

Oh, and for those of you with a U-Haul hitch... you can easily remove that "do not remove" sticker and place it in a less conspicuous place.

My plates would not fit through before I enlarged the holes. I did not notice the difference in the hole size on my Element.

I put the sticker on the backside (really the frontside) of the hitch. If I would need help with it in some way, it still has a U-Haul sticker.. :)

[quote:e58e2615f0=" "]My plates would not fit through before I enlarged the holes. I did not notice the difference in the hole size on my Element.[/quote:e58e2615f0]

The plates would not fit through the front hole but *just* fit through the rear without any modification (it was very close). I guess in retrospect, I should have chucked the carriage bolts in a drill and used a file to grind them a bit smaller so they'd go through the hole rather than griding on the car, but really the grinding on the car was minimal and much easier to do, and it's done!!

Bike rack should come in later this week and I can check and see how that works out. Jury's out on exactly how a bike rack loads the hitch and how solid it'll be.

Repost your pictures! They show an error on my end.