etrailer | Installation: 1-7/8" Hitch Ball on a 2023 Ford F-150

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Full transcript: https://www.etrailer.com/tv-install-c...
Hello neighbors, it's Brad here at etrailer and today we're taking a look at the CURT 1-7/8 Trailer Hitch Ball with an extra long shank on a 2023 Ford F-150. Now from the factory, not all F-150's come with a trailer hitch and if that's the case, you do have an option to mount up a ball on the bumper and be able to bumper tow, so that way you don't have to get a hitch or a ball mount. You can simply run it through the hole that's already there torque this down and then you'll have your ball ready to hook up to your trailer. Now what separates this ball from a lot of other balls on the market is gonna be the extra long shank and this is gonna be a 3 inch. So from the bottom of the ball platform to the bottom of the shank, this one is 3 inches, which works out really well for mounting this up on our bumper. It's gonna work with ball mounts or bumper platforms that are gonna be 1 inch to 2 inches thick and that's still gonna give us that nice secure mounting up, whereas another ball mount, the shank will be too short to be able to crank that down.

This ball is gonna be fairly heavy duty. It's got a 3,500 pound capacity and it's gonna be made out of steel with a nice chrome finish. So even if you're leaving this on your truck long term, it should hold up and look pretty good without any corrosion forming too early. Now the 1-7/8 ball works out well on the F-150. If you have a smaller trailer, some of your kayak trailers, utility trailers, jet ski trailers are gonna be that smaller 1-7/8 diameter.

So check the coupler of your trailer. You're also gonna want to check to make sure that it's gonna line up properly, so that is something that you are limited here as far as rise or drop, there is none. It's gonna be the height of where it is mounted up on your bumper, so you need to check that to make sure it's not gonna be pitched up too much. But this is a great option if you don't want to pick up a hitch, you'll still have that towing capacity at 3,500 pounds. Now you do wanna check the vehicle's owner's manual to see what it is capable of doing with the bumper tow.

In this configuration this should work out fine and we're gonna want to adhere to that 3,500 pounds. At the top of the ball you'll see that there's some built-in wrench flats and that allows you to get a wrench on here while you're torquing it down to keep it from spinning. I didn't have a whole lot of issues here. I was able to kind of just crank this down with the torque wrench and it stayed in place. Now I'll show you how to install it.

Today we have it on a 2023 Ford F-150 and you're just gonna wanna check your truck. It's gonna be a similar concept, but normally you'll have caps, some of them you'll have to cut out, but on our Ford today is just this plug and we can remove that. Now check to make sure that the diameter of the hole is gonna match up with the shank diameter. On this case it's gonna be a 1 inch, so that way it can drop directly in and that's kind of what we're looking here for. Having that extra long shank means that we're gonna have plenty of threads to get this bolted down. So we'll put our split washer in place and then I'm gonna thread on our nut by hand. Now we need to torque this down, so I'm gonna be using a 1-1/2 inch socket and a 1/2 torque wrench. The settings are gonna be found in the tag that's on the ball, so match your torque wrench to those settings to get it torqued down properly. Now on top there are gonna be some flats here to keep the ball aligned. I try to keep mine to where all the laser etching faces towards you so you can easily read it. It's not really crucial, but if you want it to stay in place, it's kind of tight here 'cause of the plastic, but you can take a wrench, it's gonna be a 1-5/8 to kind of hold this in place as we torque it down. So I'll go ahead with my socket and torque wrench and start torquing. Now if you need a torque wrench, you can get one of those here at etrailer. You can generally go to an auto parts store and rent one for free. But this is gonna be important because it's gonna make sure for the lifespan of the ball, it's obviously not gonna become loose. And I'm just gonna kind of put my wrench here and adjust it back as necessary to make sure it's centered up. (wrench beeping) And then once you hear that beep