Hitch and wiring harness

Ordered a hitch and wiring harness which came in today.  The hitch is extremely beefy.  I was expecting a smaller diameter tubing but I guess a class III hitch has to be fairly strong.

The "beefy" hitch was one pain to install.  It took close to 3 hours to put on 8 bolts.  The easy part was taking the exhaust off the hangers and unscrewing the heat shield.  Next was lifting the hitch.  I had it supported by two jack stands on the end and a hydraulic jack in the middle.  First I bolted the passenger side.  Big mistake.  Once I did that, the driver's side kept banging into the tow hook.  After I took off the bolt on the other side, I was able to lift it past the tow hook and secure it with one bolt.  ANOTHER mistake.  The bolts on the other side were so hard to align that it took me most of the time just to do this.  I finally bolted the middle first, then took off the bolt on the driver's side, and started to mess around with the alignment of the bolts.  Finally I was able to push the unbolted side and force a screw in.  After this, all the other bolts went into place.

I torqued the middle bolts first, and then started torquing the 3 bolts on both sides.  If I would have had someone to help me I think it would have been harder.  This hitch weighs about 40 lbs and would be a nightmare for someone to hold up while I tried to get the bolts in the holes.

So scrap the Honda instructions and do the following:
1. Lift the driver's side first in place
2. Lift the passenger side over the exhaust next
3. Bolt the middle section first
4. Place one bolt loosely on one side
5. Place a second bolt on the other side
6. Start tightening the two side bolts and then place remaining bolts into it.

Now that I know how it's done, I'm sure it would have taken less than an hour to install.

In box

Out of box

Hitch pin and ball receiver

Finally INSTALLED!

The wiring harness was next.  This would have been an easy task if it wasn't for the rear wiring harness that was tucked away and was taped in TWO areas.  The front install was extremely easy.  First I disconnected the battery and then started to take off the two panels - one on the drivers side and the other  below the steering wheel.  Finding the hole underneath the dash was the only hard part.  Once that was finished I was able to hook up all the connectors and relay blocks.  Then I went to the rear driver's side and saw the plug tucked away.  I was able to pull it through after I released the driver's side bolts and middle bolts of the hitch.  This should have been done before the hitch was mounted but I didn't want a dangling wiring harness before the hitch was installed.  So after releasing the first set of green tape, I could not pull the harness far enough.  Eventually I put my fingers through and followed the harness back.  Apparently there was ANOTHER tape wrap!  This one was very difficult and I finally got a good hold of it and pulled until it broke.  After that the remaining clips and harness were easy to install under the bumper.

The last step involved putting in all the fuses in the fuse box in the engine bay and then reconnecting the battery.