etrailer | How to Install: Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver on your 2006 Nissan Xterra

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Today on our 2006 Nissan Xterra we're going to be taking a look at and installing the Curt Class 3 Trailer Hitch Receiver, part number 13514. The cross tube is very visible, but that means that everything that we'll be working with here is going to be really easy to access and easy to use because it's open and there's nothing confined around it. It's got the 2 inch by 2 inch receiver tube opening with the nice solid reinforcement collar around it. Got the rolled steel safety chain connections points down here, so just about whatever type of safety chain that you may have you should be able to get it connect it here because you've got plenty of room to work. Here on the top it's got this nice reinforced steel plate that's welded on. With this one, with it coming out just a little bit past the bumper, if absolutely needed to get up to, say a roof rack or anything that you may have, you could even use that as a step if absolutely necessary. It's got the standard 5/8 of an inch hitch pin hole that's going to be used to secure all of your accessories.

It features a 400 pound max tongue weight rating and a 4,000 pound gross trailer weight rating, which are both increased to 600 pound max tongue weight rating and 6,000 pound gross trailer weight rating when used with a weight distribution system. You will want to be sure to refer to the owner's manual of your vehicle to make sure that it can handle that type of weight. Now let's give you some measurements to help assist you with your section of hitch mounted accessories such as ball mounts, bike racks, or cargo carriers. The distance from the center of the hitch pin hole to the outermost part of the rear bumper is even. The distance from the outermost part of the bumper to the face of the receiver tube is about 2 1/2 inches. The distance from the top inside edge of the receiver tube opening to the ground is about 17 1/2 inches.

Now let's show you how to install this hitch. I've gone ahead and removed the spare tire for ease of install to give ourselves more room to work. The next thing we'll do is we're going to remove this bracket that holds the exhaust up in place there at the exhaust hanger so that this can hang down just enough to give ourselves a little bit more room to work. We'll be using a 12 millimeter. There's 1 bolt on the rear side and on the front there's going to be 2. That's just going to give us that little extra bit of room that we'll need to work.

Next thing we'll do is get ready to prepare our mounting points. We're going to be removing these 2 bolts on the bumper bracket and then up here we've got an existing weld nut in the frame that we'll be using. We'll want to be sure to clean out the threads. Put a little bit of penetrating oil up in there. We'll use nylon tube brush in order to clean that out and make sure that it won't catch on the threads going in and damage the threads on the bolt. Now we can remove our 2 bolts that are in the bumper bracket there.

Use a 19 millimeter socket to do that. Then we'll repeat that same process for the 3 mounting locations on the other side. It'll be a good idea to grab a second set of hands in order to feed your hitch up into place. Then we'll install one of the new bolts that comes with the kit with lock washer. You'll put these larger bolts with lock washers into the holes that you took those factory bolts out of. Then we can reinstall our other 14 millimeter bolts. Then once we've got those 2 installed on both sides we can go up to the weld nut that's inside the frame and install 12 millimeter bolt with conical tooth washer. You want those teeth on that washer facing in towards the hitch. We'll repeat that process for the other side. Now we can go through and begin to tighten our hardware. Now for these larger 14 millimeter bolts, they're going to have a 22 millimeter head on them. This one's going to have a 19 millimeter head on it. Now we can go back to all our fasteners and torque them down to the specification listed in the instructions. Then we can reinstall our exhaust hanger. Then we can reinstall our spare tire and we're ready to hit the road. That's going to complete our look at and installation of the Curt Class 3 Trailer Hitch Receiver, part number 13514 on our 2006 Nissan Xterra.