hey how's it going everyone welcome back
to it's popping where we talk about
everything pop-up camper related
so this is just gonna be a quick how-to
video on how to
hitch up your pop-up camper to your tow
vehicle
so stay tuned for this step-by-step
guide
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okay step one
hitch in the receiver
pop your uh cotter pin in
and that's it all right step two at
least for
our pop-up is to lift up here
and pull that back so it's resting up
and off that opens up
the um hitch here to allow you to drop
it onto the ball
step three is to crank up
your the front end of your camper
uh high enough so that when you
back your uh tow vehicle and the hitch
it doesn't uh it doesn't hit uh
your uh pop-up so just tall enough to
clear it i'm pretty sure this will be
plenty tall
okay next step is to back up your tow
vehicle
so that the ball is under your
receiver and
we have a nice backup camera that points
down
so i can generally do this on my own
however if you don't have anything like
that
it doesn't hurt to have a second person
telling you when you're good
and then i always thought and park and
put on the emergency brake especially
when we have the kind of a downhill
slope of our driveway
so that way the car doesn't lurch
forward a little bit
all right next step is uh lower it down
onto the ball
make sure this is up
all right now that the pressure's off
the wheel here
we can pull that out and get rid of our
wheel chocks
all right next step is to drop this down
and sometimes if it if it's not going to
pop down a little trick i'll do is i'll
just move the tow vehicle slightly
forward or back to get it right in
position
and then come back and drop it down but
definitely don't forget to do that
otherwise there's a chance your camper
will
come off the hitch and then i put the
pin
in this is just one of those master lock
pin locks and
lock that up
and make sure our
this is all the way up because our uh
driveway's a little steep so there's
always a chance it might
hit going down the driveway so that's
all the way up now
there's four things you gotta hook up
to the tow vehicle
two of which are your chains
one it is the seven way
pin connector and then finally the
electric
brake actuator
in case uh heaven forbid your trailer
comes or your pop-up comes off
so what i like to do because these
chains are a touch long
when they're hooked up i give them a few
twists
and just make sure that they are
crisscross
so whichever side they start on they go
to the opposite
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they go to the opposite hook attachment
point
and just make sure as a general rule of
thumb that there's enough slack
in the chains and everything else you
hook to the tow vehicle
for you to make turns so that you want a
little bit of slack
because if there's not enough slack
you're not going to be able to make
those turns without putting stress on
whatever
is attached so
i don't know about you guys but i like
to wrap this around so it doesn't
drag and then this gets
connect to the tool vehicle all right
guys so i flipped over to the other side
of the pop-up to show you
how to attach the emergency uh brake
cable
so what i do is i have uh this carabiner
attached to the end of the brake cable
and then
my panty over i loop this through
the same connection point where the
chain is
and bring this around and then what i do
is i
have an overhand knot tied right here
and the idea behind this is so that the
emergency brake cable
is shorter than the chain so that way
in case the pop-up comes off the the
hitch and the ball
and if it's just on the chains um
this is shorter so hopefully your brake
will actuate
allowing your camper to slow down even
if it's you know like i said come
unhooked
a little hard to tell if this is shorter
than not but uh
because it's a little longer than the
chains but uh
it seems a little bit more taut than me
so that's how i do it
because uh i can't reach the carabiner
all the way back
to this loop right here hence the
overhand knot
so that's how uh we hook up uh
the emergency brake cable the um of
course the seven pin connector
as well as the chains so this is
attached down
got our uh lifting or raising uh
crank all the way up and
the only thing left to do really now is
check out make sure all the lights work
and
remove the wheel chocks now that uh
pop-up's connected to the tow vehicle
all right just doing the quick light
check front lights look good
you can already see that the rear lights
on
um yeah left
blinker is good brakes are good
right blinker's good
and yeah everything looks great
so that's the lights
all right so that's how to hit your
pop-up camper up to your tow vehicle
now just a quick note on how
your pop-up camper should be level when
you're towing it down the road
what you can do in order to make sure
your pop-up campers level one that's
connected
to your tow vehicle is level out your
pop-up camper
um and then measure the distance from
the coupler down to the ground and then
also while you're when your tow vehicle
is
somewhere level measure from your hitch
receiver to the ground now the
difference is going to difference
between those two measurements is going
to dictate whether you need a rise
or a drop for your hitch
for example on our vehicle we have a bit
of a rise i don't know if it's
maybe a two or a four inch rise
so that way our pop-up camper is more
level
um when we're towing it down the road
you don't want you know
you don't want your pop-up too high in
the front or too low
especially if you have a tandem axle so
that's just a quick tip on
making sure your pop-up is level when
you're when you're driving it down the
road
so if you guys um have any further
questions about how to um
how to hook up your pop-up to your tow
vehicle please let me know
and as always i hope i see you out there
camping
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