2007 Torklift Ecohitch Install

I just put the Torklift Ecohitch with the 2" receiver on my 2007 Touring and tried my best to document it. It's a nice product, very well designed and made and comes with good instructions. However, there's no way to see them prior to purchase and the Torklift Install video doesn't show much detail. So I took some pictures and captured most of it.

Start by jacking up the rear of the car and putting it on jack stands. Make sure you block the front wheels before jacking. There's a jacking pad in the center of the rear of the car ahead of the spare tire well and behind the rear axle. Place the jack stands at the jacking points on the sides (rocker) ahead of the rear wheels. You should never get under a car unless it is supported by quality jack stands.

First you'll need to remove the black cover on the driver's side. There are two plastic clips at the rear that you pry the center out and then pull the entire clip out, one 10mm hex bolt along the side, one 10mm bolt at the front up near the strut and a press on stud on the tire well.



Once that's off, you'll need to remove the transport hooks from each side. Two bolts each, 14mm socket. Driver's side shown, passenger side similar.



The Ecohitch lives in the narrow space between the bumper cover and the chassis. In order for it to fit, you'll need to temporarily bend the tabs shown out of the way.



Next you need to disconnect the muffler from its hook. Spray a lubricant like WD40 on the pin and push the rubber hanger off. It'll take some persuasion, I used a small prybar, there's a bracket above welded to the chassis that you can use to pry against. You can also see on the left in this image, there's another tab with a clip on the bumper cover on this side. Remove that push in clip and bend the metal tab out of the way too, as shown.



Now the fun part, and the place where I forgot I was taking pictures, installing the hitch. The hitch is about 45 lbs and you are basically bench pressing it into position while simultaneously pushing the bumper cover out of the way. Having a helper here would be great, but I was able to it myself with some difficulty. I used a second set of jack stands to support the hitch up close to where it needed to be. Be careful, it'd be very easy to drop the hitch on your head or chest.

Have the 3 washers on each bolt, ready within easy reach.

The space it fits in is tight and you have to push the bumper cover tabs and the bumper itself out of the way to get it in there. I worked on one side at a time. I found the passenger side was a bit trickier with the muffler and exhaust diverter flap on the bumper, so doing it first seemed easier. With the driver's side held up by the jack stand, I worked the passenger side in place. Once I got the cross tube in the space behind the bumper, I rotated it carefully so I could get one bolt in a few threads. I wanted to make sure it wouldn't fall, but I needed it loose to be able to maneuver the driver's side in place.

With one bolt in place, I was able to do the same on the driver's side. It's a tight fit, in fact the hitch presses on the bumper, slightly deforming the underside. That's the price you pay for a nice, clean look.

Once in place, I then put all 4 bolts in place (17mm hex) with the specified washers, torquing to 40 ft-lbs per the instructions.

Sorry I didn't get more pics of this, I was too busy trying not to drop the hitch on my head.

Once bolted in, you reattach the muffler, bend the tabs back and reinstall the bumper tabs. However, because of how tight the hitch install is, the snap in fasteners will not work. The Ecohitch ships with two heavy duty zip ties for reattaching them. Not particularly elegant, but it works. Here's the passenger side bracket showing the zip tie:



Next, you need to re-install the black cover. The shape of the hitch bracket, however, means you need to make a cut in the cover to clear it. The plastic of the cover is soft, easily cut with tin snips or even a utility knife. Here's the installed, modified cover (sorry, image rotation was lost):



The other zip tie (not shown) goes in the hole nearest the receiver but you'll notice that this tab does not have a fastener in it. Torklift says reuse the press in fastener, but I found I could not. I'm going to get a third zip tie.

All that's left is to bring it down off the stands. It looks quite good, almost invisible:



One note: Our driveway has a fairly pronounced dip at the end. With my SUV and our rather low slung pop up, I would drag the rear bumper of the trailer or the nut on the hitch ball. With the Prius and the cargo tray, even completely unloaded it'll drag going out my driveway:



Backing out at an angle or loading up with the car in the street will help, but it is something to keep in mind if you plan on getting a hitch for a cargo tray.

 

Funny thing is that we've yet to use it. Even with 5 of us going to Chicago for a week, we managed to get everything inside. This year's family Christmas trip will probably require it, however.