Gettin’ Hitched
Exhaust Mounting around New HitchEarlier this week I received the new hitch for my car. Despite being sick I spent a couple of hours today getting it installed. The directions claimed 30 minutes for an installation, but I imagine that’s for an experienced hitch installer with a lift. I just had a ~45°F garage, a tarp to lay on, and a fluorescent light to set on the ground beneath the car.
It took a bit of effort to get installed, but it was overall simpler than the Honda Music Link. There was some manipulating of the exhaust to be done (namely, lowering it and fitting the hitch over it), and some odd position lifting of an awkward 38 pound steel beam, but I’m happy with it. I’m really glad I was able to talk to
There are a bunch more photos of the installation here (photo gallery retired), or just click the image up top. The rack itself, a Thule 917 (1 1/4″ T2) is scheduled for delivery on Thursday. That should be a lot easier to get together, as it shouldn’t require any laying on the ground / wrenching on the car. Photos of that will be up once it’s here.
Also, I need to clean my camera’s sensor. And take another shower.
Make sure the muffler doesn’t bang into the hitch, like when you’re accelerating up a hill. The hitch on our Taurus does, and it is kind of irritating. I should have made the hitch installers fix that, but I didn’t so I’ve been living with it for 12 years now.
It really looks damn close, so check to see if it can hit. If it does it really makes a lot of noise and can drive you nuts. I don’t know what you can do about it if it does though, unless you’re willing to do some bending on the exhaust system.
Good thinking, but it’s actually… Oh… I can at least fit my hand in there, and the exhaust doesn’t really move that much.
If you look at a combination of these photos: 1, 2, 3 you can see that it’s not actually that close. Those rubber mounts are fairly nice too, as I can’t move the exhaust by hand more than… oh… 2cm, even when using a lot of force.
So sad… your title got me really excited for a second and I thought you were getting married.