Hi,
I realise that this is something that most people would not do as a mod, but since I have a need to tow a boat, I thought I would write up a "how to" to help out anyone else who would like to install one themselves. Sorry about the quality of the images they were taken from my Iphone.
First of all a MASSIVE thank you to John (Phatz), who kindly gave away his tow bar and also trusted a stranger to take his car apart to remove it. People like John are very rare to find these days.
When I removed the tow bar on John's car I noticed that there was a fair bit of rust on the bottom bracket holding the tow bar in the chassis rail. This is hidden by the rear muffler baffle so is impossible to even have a spot check.
I would however recommend anyone with a tow bar especially if they use it to tow a boat to salt water to have a check, as the rust was quite severe.
Here are a couple of pics of what I mean.
I was going to get it sand blasted and powder coated but since I had some time off work I thought I would do it myself.
1. Hit all the rusted areas with a wire wheel
2. Treated all remaining rust with rust converter
3. Primered it in a rust proof paint
4. Finished it off with a charcoal hammered spray paint.
This is the result
Ok so now lets start with how to install it.
The first step is to remove the rear lights. Sorry I didn't get pics of how to remove it but it's fairly straight forward and I will try and describe it the best I can.
Remove the rear plastic garnish by taking out the 3 plastic clips and then lift it straight up. It's also held in by a further 3 clips that are hidden, so when you lift it off you will hear the clips release.
Remove the clip top corner clip on the inner side of each light, this will then give you enough access to get your hands / tools behind the boot lining to undo the 4 x 8mm nut on each light. Unplug the wiring loom and simply pull the light straight out.
Note: Remove the clips carefully, as to not damage your trim or snap the clips. I have a tool that is designed for this purpose and is worthwhile if you work on cars as often as I do.
At this stage I have also raised the car slightly to give me a bit more room to access the underside of the car. I have used 2 jacks for this, purely cause I have only raised it slightly, and the wheels are still firmly on the ground. You can use axle stands or ramps if you like for this.
Now we need to remove the rear bar. There's quite a few pop out clips that holds the bar in place including 2 10mm bolts.
2 clips under where the lights were.
4 clips under the rear edge of the bar.
1 clip just behind the rear wheel on the underside.
Inside the boot, in bottom corners, there is a plastic plug which hides one of the bolts for the bar. Remove this plug and undo the 10mm bolt on each side.
The last 10mm bolt is hidden behind the top corner of the wheel arch. It is horizontally positioned.
Once you have this bolt undone, you simply have to give the rear bar a bit of a yank rearwards to free it from the clips at the bottom edge of the boot opening. Take care here, as the sides of the bar has a metal bracket and can easily scratch your rear quarter panel if not careful.
It should look like this without the rear bar.
You then need to remove the re-enforcement bar by the 3 12mm nuts on each side.
And then 3 more 12mm nuts to remove the re-enforcement bar bracket
Undo these 2 x 14mm bolts to release the rear mufflers
and slide the mufflers of their 2 rubber mounts. (this is a good opportunity to give the tips a good polish )
You now need to undo the 4 x 10mm bolts that hold the heat shield / baffle
Repeat the removal of the muffler and the heat shield on both sides.
Once you have all of this off, you can now start on installing the tow bar.
If yours is brand new, it will be in 3 main pieces + 2 brackets. You would need to slide each side pieces into the chassis rail, and then bolt the rear horizontal piece with the hitch in.
Since mine is already assembled I simply slid the whole tow bar into the chassis rail, then bolted the it in. Do the ones on the rear first, this should allow the holes for the bolts to align with the chassis rail.
Don't forget that the bracket for your rear bar needs to be behind the tow bar, I almost did !!
Now we need to install the bracket under the chassis rail. From memory these are 3 x 16mm bolts, the longest bolt is the rearmost one which screws in on a diagnal.
Unfortunately the heat shield does not go back in without needing some modification. As you can see from the pics below there are 2 dimples marking where you should drill the holes to accomodate for tow bar bolts. You will need to drill 2 holes on each baffle big enough to clear the 16mm bolts, before reinstalling the shield.
We now come to the wiring harness. First you will need to slice the rear most rubber floor plug which is under your spar wheel. I used a stanley knife to cut a + into it as the plug is quite large. Run the loom through it and replace the plug.
Note: the loom should have no slack under your car.
Fortunately this is a very straight forward process. The loom simply plugs into the spare plug on the driver's side rear light loom.
You then need to fasten the hitch plug. I used some 8mm bolts that I had spare. I also cable tied the loom underneath the car just in case.
Now comes the nerve racking part. Cutting the rear bar. I'm not sure if there is a template that you get with the kit, but luckily I took a template of Phatz rear bar when I removed it. The most important thing here to to make sure it is dead center. I used the the semi circle cut out at the bottom of the bar to help me center it. I used a Dremel with a cutting disc to do this.
My advice is "measure twice, cut once"
Once you have cut it, put the rubber trim edges on. You also need to cut out a hole so that the bar can clear the plug. I didn't take any pics of this, but you can line up the bar and see where it needs cutting.
Before we can put the bar back on, we need to bolt up the re-enforcement
Now it's just a matter to reversing the process of removing the bar and installing the rear lights.
2 people would be handy to help put the bar on as it can be tricky to try and clear the hitch and line everything up.
This is the finished product, hope you found this guide useful.