Hitch Is Installed

WOOT! I am so friggin' happy to report that the Curt brand class III trailer hitch that I picked up from etrailer for the Sportage is now officially installed on the car. It was fairly easy over-all once I was able to figure out exactly what I needed to adjust and tweak to make it all fit into place. Thanks big time to my awesome pit crew of the past (when I raced karts, motorcycles and everything else) who is still my #1 spare-hand mechanic - Cizzle. I would not have been able to do it as easy without you putting in those first 2 bolts for me and letting me know at the start of the project the areas of the heat shield that the hitch was bumping up against, thank you - thank you so much!

So once in place and buttoned up it was only a matter of putting the heat shields back into place as best that I could by bending them downward. Something the instructions don't really mention, bending them up that is. OK I take that back, it does say that "you may have to cut or adjust the heat shield to get the hitch to go into place properly".

What they should really be saying is that you have to bend the F^$k out of the thing while dirt and chunks of exhaust build-up fall onto your face, mouth and so on. Then we you try to put it into place you have to be EXTREMELY careful to not push up and back while your fingers are in between the now bent heat shield and the heavy hitch or you are asking for a really nice set of sliced fingers - at the very least.

No matter it's done and I am crazy happy. I torqued everything down to the specifications in the manual and bolted everything back up as it should be, hung the exhaust back up and so on. Then of course after any project I cleaned up everything and made sure it was put back together the same, if not better than when I found it / started the project - it's the way I like to do things. If you are reading this Zoey, I have probably taught you that all of your life and you are tired of hearing it but I sincerely hope that you remember the importance of it kiddo.

Rest Of The Day

Anyway, other than that I did not accomplish a whole lot else today other than catching up on some much needed rest and time with the kiddo, better half and the fuzzy kid. It was a really nice day out, but the wind was blowing like crazy and as you all know very well by now - I HATE the friggin' wind with a passion but the warm weather was awesome and welcomed! We are going to watch "The Wolf Of Wall Street" tonight since we have not had a movie night in a long time. Hopefully it's a decent movie and we don't fall asleep in the middle of it - it's kinda long.

Oh and real fast, no news on my mountain bike coming in yet. It was supposed to be here toward the end of the week according to the guys when Cicely called them but because I did not get a call from them today the only thing that I can assume is that it has yet to make it from Santa Cruz. Seems odd to me, it's literally just over the hill from us and the bike was showing as "in stock" when I put in the order on Good Friday - grr / ugh! On the bright-side it gives me time to get all of the stuff I need to tote it around this summer I suppose.

Clean Up

Oh and yea, the photo of the day today you would think would be the hitch under my car. But it was dark by the time I had finished it / thought about doing so and so I figured if I took a photo from the internet of the hitch installed on the SX Turbo model that it's just as good. I will say, I do like the color of the Sportage in the photo. Hmm, I may have to see if that color is available for the AWD Turbo charged model the first part of 2015 when I am looking for my next car.

Photo: The new Curt hitch that I installed on the Sportage today. It went on fairly easy and if I had to do it again I think I could in under an hour, probably as little as 30 minutes once the car was up on the ramps. Today it took about an hour and 45 minutes just because I was being extra careful and cautious with the bending of the heat shield, lowering of the dual exhaust and so on. All-in-all I am super stoked with the purchase and cant wait to get my Kuat hitch bike rack now!