etrailer | Installing the Blue Ox Base Plate Kit on your 2023 GMC Sierra 1500

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Full transcript: https://www.etrailer.com/tv-install-b...
Hey everyone, Ryan here at etrailer. Today on our 2023 GMC Sierra 1500, we're gonna be showing you how to install the Blue Ox base plate kit with removable arms. But before we do that, we'll take a minute, check this out, and make sure it's gonna work for you. So base plate is gonna be one of five main parts that you're gonna need to set your truck up to flat tow. The other four will be a tow bar, safety cables, tow bar wiring, as well as a supplemental braking system. And personally, we do a ton of these here.

I usually do at least one a week, sometimes two, so quite a bit of experience. And when it comes to putting a base flight on a truck, a lot of times they don't turn out this good, meaning they're almost an afterthought. They're really noticeable and things like that, and that's just not the case with this particular setup. I think it looks awesome. The base plate is going to come through the openings here where your tow hooks were.

So it definitely doesn't look out of place or isn't super noticeable or anything like that. And not to mention too the finish on the base plate, more of a matte black type finish. I think it blends in really well because it almost matches the factory plastic almost spot on. The base plate does come with these little plugs, which I do think is a nice touch when you're not using it, keeps 'em clean and looks a little bit better. But when you are ready to use it, it's gonna be easy, and I think that's really important when it comes to flat towing components 'cause a lot going on, you don't want this complicated setup to deal with.

So, we'll pull those out. You can take those moveable arms. You'll put 'em in place. You'll rotate it about a quarter turn. It will lock in.

Same thing for the other side. And now that's gonna give you an attachment point to allow you to hook up your tow bar to it. As far as what tow bars are gonna be compatible with this, the Blue Ox Tow Bars, we'll go right to it, as well as some of the other ones. And even nowadays, let's say if you already have a tow bar that you really like, let's just say a Roadmaster for example, chances are pretty good you can pair that up with this base plate because a lot of these manufacturers now are making adapter ends on the tow bar that'll allow you to swap those ends out and be compatible with this style. The base plate is gonna be compatible with all the different types of models of the Sierra 1500 really with one exception. And that is if you happen to have the AEV bumper, which those are probably pretty uncommon. They're more of a big aftermarket style, winch-capable type bumper. It sounds like though, even if you have that, there's other options available out there that will work. Speaking of other options too, to compare this one to some of the other base plates, they're all gonna be pretty similar, especially in terms of the appearance. Not too many differences there, but again, I am a fan of the finish and being that it matches really well. You really can't go wrong there. Other than that, at the end of the day, nice setup. Blue Ox has been around for a long time making plateau components so they seem like they have it figured out. Again, we do quite a bit of quite a bit of these here and it's not too often that we run into too many issues. But as far as getting this installed goes, the actual base plate is pretty easy. It's getting to that point to be able to put it on, which is the time consuming part. You gotta take your grill off, this plastic fascia, the metal bumper. There's a lot of clips on this truck so just take your time, go slow, be deliberate. I'll show you a couple things that I did along the way, hopefully it'll make that process easier for you. And if this is something you don't even wanna deal with, I completely get that. You can always use our dealer locator and hopefully that can get you going in the right direction and find a shop that can help you out with it. But if you're doing this yourself, feel free to hang around. We'll go ahead and get started on it now. To begin our installation, we're gonna be here at the front of our GMC and we're gonna have to remove the front end here. And so we'll have this plastic radiator cover we can pull off as well as the hood release lever. For our hood release, we're just gonna have two T15 Torx