I bought a 2017 Wrangler without the "Max Tow Package" since I intended to install an after market tow hitch.
I bought the Draw-Tite 75515 Class III 2" Receiver Hitch which comes with four 1/2-13 X 4.50 hex bolts. All four bolts fit just fine in 3 out of the 4 the pre-drilled holes on the Wrangler frame cross member, but one of the pre-drilled holes appears to be too small.
I have attached a picture to illustrate. It was taken while on laying on floor and looking towards the rear. The Hex Bolt enters the hole on one side of the cross member, but it won't exit out the other.
Is this a defect? Anyone else experience this? Do I need to drill to widen it?
And I should mention, this is even _without_ trying to mount the hitch. The bolts fit just fine in the hitch itself.
Never had an issue with the hole size as well. Try threading a bolt through. (not the same on that came with the hitch, may strip the threads if it does not work)
Use some WD40 and cleaned out the threads before the actual install. Sometimes its the powder coating and not too often its the machining. If you don't want to return it then try to fix it by rethreading the welded nut.
Happened to me as well in the same place. 2017. I simply left the bolt out since I only use hitch for bike rack. Not easy to drill because you need to remove bumper or exhaust or both. It's fine this way for a bike rack. I would find a way to install the fourth bolt if I wanted to tow something.
I would say it's probably some metal slag around the hole on the frames X Member form when it was manufactured. Not much of a problem as long as you can get a drill in there to drill it out, a round rat file would work to, as long as you can get the file in the hole. Take a short bolt of the same size an see it the bolt will go in from the other side, them you will know if the hole is clear or not.
We must all remember here that not all of us are mechanical minded, what is a no brainer for some is mechanical challenging for others. Sure three bolts will hold a bike rack, but like someone said, what if others want to use the hitch for it's max use, you must install as required by the manufacture. I personally don't buy used vehicles with may modifications done to them for this reason, I don't know what expertise's they have and if the work was done to my standards. If this vehicle is under warranty the dealer should drill out the hole under warranty, these holes were put here to install the accessories sold by Mopar and all should bolt on without any problem. They don't know if you have a Mopar hitch or aftermarket, they just need to know the bolt won't go through the hole, but all the others do. I just can't believe there is this much BS over a bolt hole.
We must all remember here that not all of us are mechanical minded, what is a no brainer for some is mechanical challenging for others. Sure three bolts will hold a bike rack, but like someone said, what if others want to use the hitch for it's max use, you must install as required by the manufacture. I personally don't buy used vehicles with may modifications done to them for this reason, I don't know what expertise's they have and if the work was done to my standards. If this vehicle is under warranty the dealer should drill out the hole under warranty, these holes were put here to install the accessories sold by Mopar and all should bolt on without any problem. They don't know if you have a Mopar hitch or aftermarket, they just need to know the bolt won't go through the hole, but all the others do. I just can't believe there is this much BS over a bolt hole.
The way I read the OP's issue, the hole in question is not on the Jeep, it is on the aftermarket hitch receiver he purchased. Doesn't seem like the OP owns a drill. If I were in his situation, I would send the receiver back and get a new one.
Send it back to the company that sold it to you and order a new one. One should not need to do any drilling on the frame to install a hitch. Had a similar problem with one bought from 4WD that interfered with my aftermarket bumper. Ended up pulling off the OEM one from my wife's JK and swapping them out.
It kind of worries me that people are running on the road with mods that haven't been secured properly. Especially when they admit that they are not mechanically minded.
Please go to a shop and pay the dough to get it tightened and put in right!
Did this turn out to be a warranty issue? I have the same problem on my 2017 rubicon. the 4th hole to the right is too small to fit the bolt through the frame.
I had a similar issue with my 17 Willys edition. I was able to get the bolt in the front, it just wasn't pushing through on the back side with 3 of the 4 bolts. I just pushed the bolts in as far as they would go and start wrenching on them. There was resistance but I wasn't cranking on them, so I felt pretty confident that it was just powder coating in the bolt holes. Sure enough they all came through without having any thread issues and I was then able to put the nuts on the back and kept ratcheting on them (my nuts were not welded onto the tow hitch). Not sure if others will have the same luck as I did, but it worked out well for me.
This is normal, there is one hole thats undersized. Drill it out to 13mm-14mm. Every JK ive built had to have this done when installing an aftermarket bumper with built in hitch.
none of the dealerships would even look at the jeep so I just drilled mine. one was a slot and the other was so small the bolt wouldn't even come close to going through.
SOLVED: Hitch Installation through too small a hole
I encountered the same issue purchasing a hitch where the bolt did not quite fit in the last hole (behind the passenger side). I suspect this issue is caused because the holes in the Jeep bumper are drilled for a Metric bolt which is nearly the same size, just slightly smaller.
At the local HW, I picked up a bolt and matching nut for under $2 with the following dimensions:
Diameter - 12mm
Length - 110
Threadpitch - 1.75
Note: for me, the bolt looks nearly identical to the 1/2" Diameter, 4.5" length bolts supplied with the hitch purchased.
The Metric bolt slipped right through the hole easily.
Installation took me less than 10 minutes using the following technique:
1. Hold hitch up to bumper and slip all 4 bolts (three original bolts and the 4th metric bolt) through the 4 holes on both the bumper and the hitch before threading any nuts
2. then I hand threaded each nut to get them all started
3. finally I used a wrench on each bolt while holding each nut with lockjaw pliers
Hope it helps!
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