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Suspension Connection Class III Hitch

I wanted a Class III hitch and I didn't want a "universal" type. After quite a bit of research, I decided on a hitch from Suspension Connection. I chose their Part #086 for my 2004 Tacoma. I'm very pleased with the product and would definitely buy one again, and recommend it to anyone looking for a well-made hitch. Fit and finish is very good, although UPS beat the daylights out of it.

The shipping weight is 48 pounds; this is some serious steel!
NOTE: This is information is meant only as a supplement to the included installation instructions, which don't have any diagrams or pictures, or as an overview of what's required for those who are thinking about installing this hitch themselves.
The pictures are below the accompanying text. (I seriously need a new digital camera; I apologize that the pictures aren't very good.)
Parts: 19mm socket (or 3/4"), 19mm wrench (or 3/4"), PB Blaster - WD40, dielectric grease, philips head screwdriver, Loctite, torque wrench, mallet or hammer.
Here's what you get. I also purchased a wiring kit from them, which made that part of it very easy.

BE SURE TO CHECK YOUR PARTS AGAINST THE INCLUDED INVENTORY LIST!

The hitch and parts boxes were damaged and taped up, so I'm sure that's where 3 of the spacers were lost. Fortunately, I never throw away any hardware such as this, and had spacers to replace the missing ones.

Not wanting to take the chance of having the bumper suddenly in my lap, I loosely tied it up so that when the final bolt was removed it wouldn't just fall off. As it turns out, this may not have been necessary, but I would do it again.
Remove the license plate lights from both sides of the bumper step.

Clean things up. I'm a big fan of PB Blaster, available at Wal-Mart, etc., and liberally used it on all the nuts and bolts that I would be working with. I did it right away so that while I got set up, it could be doing it's thing.

Most of the pictures will be showing the Driver's side of the truck. Shown below is the bracket that hold the bumper to the frame end piece. You'll want a 19mm socket for these bolts.

This is the frame end piece where the bumper mounts. You'll need to remove the circled nut and bolt and the bolt that threads into a welded-on nut, indicated by the arrow.
The labels on the picture below should clear up any confusion. Working from the outside, driver side of the truck toward the passenger side, you have the original frame end piece where the bumper mounts, the hitch plate and then the actual frame of the truck. NOTE: the oval indicates the frame end piece "flap" which goes through the cutout in the hitch plate and will slip over the passenger side of the frame end when installed.

I use WD-40 for cleaning parts and such, and used it to clean the frame ends before installing the hitch. Note that the two yellow circles below indicate the mounting bolt locations. The forward one with the white mark has a welded nut on the other side. The rear one requires both a bolt and nut.

*** Don't tighten down any of the hardware until the very end, after the hitch is fully in place ***

After some fumbling, I found that because the frame end piece that the bumper mounts to is slotted, it was easiest to thread the bolt through the hitch plate a couple turns and then add the frame end piece.

Just move the hitch plate into place, making sure that the frame end "flap" goes through the cutout in the hitch plate. Once everything was lined up and where it belonged, I tapped it into place with a mallet. (The flap was what caused what little difficulty I encountered.)

If you're pretty close but are having trouble getting the bolt holes lined up, you can put an extension into the hole closest to the rear of the truck and wiggle it around until everything is lined up and you can put the bolt through.

The yellow arrows indicate the flap over the frame and the hitch plate tab under the truck frame. The extension is marked with red text.
The hitch mount is ready on the left side - just follow the same procedure for the right side. The yellow circles, below, show the three new bolts holding it all in place. The forward one is the bolt that threads into a welded nut. Note that the flap is over and into the truck frame end. All the hardware is loose at this point, there won't be that space at the top of the hitch plate / truck frame once it's all torqued to spec.
Here's the hitch mounted and all in place, but still loosely assembled. I'm going to "take a break" at this point and install the wiring kit while everything is opened up.

I also bought the wiring kit from Suspension Connection, their part #7275T. I remember the time when all this was done by finding and splicing into the appropriate wires, or what you hoped were the appropriate wires. Thankfully, those days are long gone - this was about as painless as it gets.

Remove the taillights. There are 4 screws each: the long ones go toward the outside of the truck, the short ones are closest to the tailgate.

When you disconnect the taillight from the truck wiring, be aware that there is a tab that holds the connectors together. My index finger is on that tab in the picture below. Just press down on that tab as you rock the plug out of the socket.

The brand that you use doesn't really matter, but I would highly recommend that you assemble all electrical connections with dielectric grease.

The connectors are well-labelled. Press the dielectric grease into the female connectors. Then, just plug the truck connector into the wiring kit - which is clearly marked driver side and passenger side, and the remaining end into the taillight.

Find a good, out of the way location and drill a 1/8" hole for where the ground wire will be screwed to the frame. I used the upper inside of the frame end, putting on a dab of dielectric grease before and after the wire was screwed down.

With the wiring completed, it's time to finish up with the hitch. See the installation instructions for details on the order in which the fasteners should be torqued and to what value they should be torqued to.

I used red Loctite for this final assembly, and double-nutted (from my own stock of hardware) where possible. These extra steps are certainly optional, but are worth the effort for peace of mind.

Lastly, I tied up the bumper to the corner tie-down. You have to move the bumper around to get the spacers into place and the bolts lined up and threaded in. Again, an optional step, but I didn't want the bumper falling off and slamming into my knee cap, or whatever.

The finished product! I bought one of those lighted inserts at Wal-Mart for about $10. They keep the dirt and junk out of the hitch and give one more little bit of light that might help the more challenged drivers to not slam into you at a stop light.

I squatted down for this picture, to provide a sort of "even on " view of the assembly. This is more or less what the driver of a vehicle behind you would see. In this view and for someone walking by, you only see the end plates of the hitch. This is a Class III hitch, not some soccer mom thing, and yet it's still very well hidden.

This has worked out very well for me. I'd guess that the average installation time would be about 2 hours. I say "guess" because it took me a little over 3, but that was with taking a bunch of pictures of each step that I wanted to document and making notes.