[Frankhi]

A friend gave me a 3500lb hitch off their Honda Element. This was too good of a DIY project to pass up so today I begin.

The first pic shows the HE hitch with the mounting plates cut off.. The HE hitch is too wide for the PP so it will be shortened. The two pieces of angle are drilled for the bolts and will have a lot of steel removed when the final location of the welds are defined.
First of all I needed bolts, but M14*1.5mm bolts are as rare as hens teeth and can cost $10 per bolt! No matter, I bought 6 Grade 8 bolts at 3.5 inches long for about $1 per bolt.

I then mounted in the lathe, machined off the threads, then machined the un-threaded part down to 14mm. The remaining blank bolt could then be threaded with a M14*1.5mm die.

The bolt transitions from the 9/16ths Grade 8 bolt on the left to the final M14 bolt on the right.

I have removed the center bumper panel and hope to be able to fit the hitch nice and high into the bumper like the OEM or maybe a little higher but that will depend on how the geometry works out.

The next step is to mount the angle brackets to the car to get an exact width between the angles to cut the hitch and re-weld.

Stay tuned..

 

[PNWGarageDad]

Nice work!

 

[Frankhi]

Nice work!

Thanks..

OK next phase was to shorten the the hitch by the appropriate amount with the pipe cutter (to keep it square)

Then to clamp and tack weld in place.

Note I think I managed to tuck the hitch up higher than the OEM mount so its looking good.
Next job is to finish the last couple of welds, paint and then modify the rear valence panel.

 

[Frankhi]

Here is the final installation. I still need to pull the hitch off and paint it but all the welding is done.

I simply hacked out the existing rear valance panel. I was going to build a shadow box to "black out" the area between the hitch and back of the panel. Honestly looking at it, it really doesn't look too bad as is. We don't have a trailer harness yet and may not even get one (the hitch primarilly being used for bike racks).

If we do add wiring I might do something different but for now it looks OK.. What do you guys think?

The hitch looks higher than the OEM install, i.e the bottom of the hitch is about 3/8ths inch above the bottom edge of the rear panel.

 

[PNWGarageDad]

Well done! Excellent!