Moving back to the hitch itself (nudge nudge), David, can you elaborate a little more on the "fishing of the bolts" onto the frame?

Also, did you need a torque wrench, or did you SWAG it?

I want to put a hitch on for a bicycle rack and to move an EMPTY horse trailer (just to get to somewhere to sell it). Before I commit to the boss, er wife, that I can do the work, I want to be well informed.

 

I think you need to send to dmgibbs, he is the guy with the actual hitch. I am still vacillating on where to get one - Ford, U-Haul or Hidden Hitch. I do fault Ford for making things so confusing. Now we hear from the fellow who used a Ford non-Escape hitch with success. One would think that Ford would have a better system in place, but then I am coming off of 11 years of Subaru ownership and may be spoiled :-)

 

It took me a few minutes to figure out how to get the bolts into the frame with the wire fish they provided. On once side the bolt and flange fit into the frame together, on the other side they had to be seperated. Just slide the flange up the fish a few inches and feed each part individually. Since both parts are on the fish, it won't get lost. With a little wiggling the flange will slide back onto the bolt without a problem. I suggest you feed the fish in through the hole you want the bolt to come out of instead of trying to feed it from the end the bolt goes in.

The bolts are fished in through the frame member from the bumper end.

I'm not home at the moment, but when I get back I'll try to take some pictures that illustrate the manuver..

I used a torque wrench ... but you need a fairly small one. I purchased one for the task from Sears ($30 model), but it ended up being too big to get to the bolt that is above the muffler. Luckily a friend had one that was the right size.

david

 

I finally got off my fence and ordered a hitch from a local U-Haul store. The service mgr. says they are actually made by Hidden Hitch. The price would be $102, with an extra bit to install. It would have a 1.25" receiver, which is good for my Thule bike rack, and not require any cutting of bumpers. I will post my experience with it. Should take about two weeks to get it in and installed. The service guy also took a look at the Escape's rear end construction and felt that the Hybrid is none too sturdy in the hitch mounting department anyway and advised me to keep the loads light. This is in comparison with experience installing hitches on other vehicles. So, empty horse trailer - maybe if it is light, but most I have seen look pretty bulky. Jon boat - probably, if you don't have a fancy trailer with electric hoist and lots of side rails and big bass wells, etc. I have an old Sears thing that weighs about 100 lbs and a single beam trailer that has only the axel to stand on. The motor and battery weigh more than the boat. The Thule hitch and bikes weigh almost that much.

 

I got my hitch installed last Sunday. It has the 2" receiver, not the 1.25" as the U-Haul fellow had thought. It is made by Cort, looks very sturdy, no cutting of bumper cover involved as it hangs below everything. It has oblong (oriented L/R) mounting holes so it's position can be adjusted a bit, which it needed. On first drive the muffler on its rubber hanger kept banging against the hitch frame. U-turn to U-Haul and they fixed it in a jiffy. They also installed a trailer light socket (without any light processor that I am aware of) but I don't plan to use it much. I will post pictures of the installation a bit later.

Anyone want to buy a very good, slightly used 4-bike Thule Expressway, 1.25" receiver, bike rack? Has integrated bike locking cable, locks to the hitch receiver and has all the parts. Free delivery in N. Virginia area.

 

If they didn't use a converter your lights won't work. The Escape has a seperate turn signal line, which means some sort of converter is necessary. Given the very lightweight lines going into the taillight assemblies, you really do need the powered converter. Also, it's likely if they did not use a converter the bulb failure system will malfunction when you attach a trailer light's load to the vehicle.

 

Where would this converter, if they used one, be located? Can I tell for sure without hooking up any lights? My trailer is 75 miles away from the car right now and I have not had a chance to try it out. All I see when I follow the cables back from the connector is that the wiring disappears up into the left side (looking from the rear) of the car. There is also a wire running between the right and left sides along the bumper.

I know this is the first Escape Hybrid the hitch installer worked on. Due to my lack of Spanish, I was not able to have a really good conversation with him, but I did explain the gas/battery combo and he knew about the Prius. Is the Escape Hybrid different in this regard compared with the non-hybrid Escape?

Will I cause damage to anything if I hook up another set of brake lights?

The cable connector does have indicator LEDs for some sort of circuit testing.

Does the power converter just drop the amperage so that the turn signal does not cycle more rapidly than normal? I have seen this on other cars when a trailer was hooked up.

 

I called U-Haul, where I got my hitch installed. They said they had never heard of such a thing, and that maybe only a heavier fuse would need to be installed. Do you have any part numbers or other info?

 

The converter has 3 functions:

1. The FEH has a differnt bulb for the turn signal (standard bulb) and tail/brake (dual filiment bulb) lights. A 4 wire trailer has only 1 dual filiment bulb and the converter "maps" the turn signal from the FEH to the tail light on the trailer.

2. The converter provides isolation from the vehicle electronics. Most late model cars have current sensors to detect when an external bulb has gone bad (in the escape you get an error on the dash display if bulb is burned out). The converter keeps the trailer lighting system and the FEH lighting system from interfering with each other. The converter only uses the the FEH lighting system to detect when to turn on the trailer lights.

3. Overload protection. Most converters provide "short circut" protection in case the trailer lights have a problem.

You can most likely tell if a converter has been installed if there is a 12 power lead run to the 12 Volt battery in the FEH. This power lead is used to power the converter and the lights on the trailer.

 

Thank you for the info. I am going to check around with other hitch dealers. I suspect that my U-Haul dealer mostly rents trucks and does not know much about hooking up lights.