rayra
Expedition Leader
Anyone familiar with Suburbans knows it's kind of laughable to even apply 'departure angle' to them, without a lot of mods and height increase.
Just a 'simple' deletion / relocation of the trailer electrical connector, from the hitch-mounted plate that hangs way down, up into the bumper proper.
Got the trailer connector plate cut off, ground off the remainder, primed sanded primed and repainted the hitch bar satin black. I also rounded off the bottom edges and corners of the receiver tube and the safety chain plate, in the hopes that when they make contact they'll drag a bit easier.
But I am thinking that on deliberate trips into the desert where I'm not hauling a trailer, I may just drop the whole hitch bar, it's eight large bolts, wouldn't take ~15mins to pull it. Even without the shackle insert, the whole receiver really just destroys what little rear clearance the Sub has in the first place.
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rest is just details
Here's the layout, the rectangle to the right of the plate is a small cover for access to the spare tire winch. The bottom left is the trailer electrical connection. There's a nice blank space left of the plate, my thought was to set the new location to balance out the spare tire port cover.
Here's a closeup of the connector and mount, the yellow lines are along the welds which hold it to the main hitch tube.
Underneath, looking at the inner face of the rear bumper. Yellow circle is the new mounting location, nothing but empty space all around it and no interference with the spare.
Here's the stock mounting plate keyhole for the connector, this is the template for the hole I'm cutting in my bumper (and a little 'art' with the angle on the oil stains)
I measured the offset on the spare tire winch port cover and marked that centerline on the new location and covered the factory plate with tape and traced a pattern on it, and marked it's centerline (sorta).
I reinforced that template with a bit more tape, cut out its center with an X-Acto blade, then transferred the template to the new location. The trailer coupling rotates in that opening to lock / unlock, made sure to leave some vertical room at the top for that rotation.
Used a spring-punch to mark multiple drilling locations. My plan was to use a combo of drills, step-drill bit and dremel (various cutting and grinding bits) to open up the hole. Key idea being to do it in place and do it without destroying the paint.
Then I started making a mess, left out a bit of the intermediate horrors
After most of the cleanup, including deburring the inner and outer faces of the cut edges.
It took a bit of fine fitting, some repeated fine grindings, to get to where the coupler would fit and turn freely enough. The bumper is a small bit thicker than the mounting plate, so I also beveled the edges of the plastic tabs on the coupler, where they would meet and engage the bumper.
Here's the backside view, with the coupler mounted in its new home. Plenty of slack in the wiring to route that high and safe. Safer than it was.
And here's the outside view, in its new location, counterbalancing the spare tire winch port
Just a 'simple' deletion / relocation of the trailer electrical connector, from the hitch-mounted plate that hangs way down, up into the bumper proper.
Got the trailer connector plate cut off, ground off the remainder, primed sanded primed and repainted the hitch bar satin black. I also rounded off the bottom edges and corners of the receiver tube and the safety chain plate, in the hopes that when they make contact they'll drag a bit easier.
But I am thinking that on deliberate trips into the desert where I'm not hauling a trailer, I may just drop the whole hitch bar, it's eight large bolts, wouldn't take ~15mins to pull it. Even without the shackle insert, the whole receiver really just destroys what little rear clearance the Sub has in the first place.
---
rest is just details
Here's the layout, the rectangle to the right of the plate is a small cover for access to the spare tire winch. The bottom left is the trailer electrical connection. There's a nice blank space left of the plate, my thought was to set the new location to balance out the spare tire port cover.
Here's a closeup of the connector and mount, the yellow lines are along the welds which hold it to the main hitch tube.
Underneath, looking at the inner face of the rear bumper. Yellow circle is the new mounting location, nothing but empty space all around it and no interference with the spare.
Here's the stock mounting plate keyhole for the connector, this is the template for the hole I'm cutting in my bumper (and a little 'art' with the angle on the oil stains)
I measured the offset on the spare tire winch port cover and marked that centerline on the new location and covered the factory plate with tape and traced a pattern on it, and marked it's centerline (sorta).
I reinforced that template with a bit more tape, cut out its center with an X-Acto blade, then transferred the template to the new location. The trailer coupling rotates in that opening to lock / unlock, made sure to leave some vertical room at the top for that rotation.
Used a spring-punch to mark multiple drilling locations. My plan was to use a combo of drills, step-drill bit and dremel (various cutting and grinding bits) to open up the hole. Key idea being to do it in place and do it without destroying the paint.
Then I started making a mess, left out a bit of the intermediate horrors
After most of the cleanup, including deburring the inner and outer faces of the cut edges.
It took a bit of fine fitting, some repeated fine grindings, to get to where the coupler would fit and turn freely enough. The bumper is a small bit thicker than the mounting plate, so I also beveled the edges of the plastic tabs on the coupler, where they would meet and engage the bumper.
Here's the backside view, with the coupler mounted in its new home. Plenty of slack in the wiring to route that high and safe. Safer than it was.
And here's the outside view, in its new location, counterbalancing the spare tire winch port
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