Boxster Tow Hitch & Track Trailer

by Trygve Isaacson, copyright c1999

I recently took delivery of my South Sport track trailer for carrying race tires to track events.

The trailer was delivered partially assembled, on a shipping pallet, via Consolidated Freightways. Apparently, it's too big and heavy to be shipped via UPS. I lucked out and South Sport had one available in stock. I had heard that the trailers were built "on demand", but over the phone they said that they actually build a batch of five trailers when they get an order. Evidently the last one in the batch was still available. They shipped it out and it arrived in less than a week. The Boxster-specific hitch was sent separately via UPS. I mooched a ride with my friend's minivan and we went down to the CF terminal loading dock in Richmond, broke the crate open, and put the stuff in the back of the minivan. The trailer frame (with the toolbox already bolted on) just barely fit inside the width of the minivan. The rest was no problem. I think there only four bubble-wrapped pieces, plus the frame/toolbox, and some stuff packed inside the toolbox. It would easly fit in the back of a pickup truck.

In California, you must take the trailer and paperwork to the DMV (after you've assembled it so you can tow it there!), have them inspect it, and then register it and receive a license plate. It cost me $111, which included $66 in sales tax since under their rules I had bought it in Florida (no sales tax) for use here. They add a late fee if you wait too long (over a month?) between purchase and registration, so don't procrastinate. They tried to charge me the late fee but I explained that the purchase date was not the date I received it, so they entered the date of receipt into their computer and that kept me within the grace period to avoid the late fee.

The hitch lacked a hitch ball, so I went to the hardware store and picked up a 1-7/8" ball with a 3/4" inch diameter, 1-1/2" length shank. The ball fits in a hole in the hitch and bolts on. Depending on the threading, you may also need a washer or two to make the bolt thread on fully.

Mounting the hitch to the Boxster is really simple, but involves a little drilling (it's invisible when the hitch is not attached). First, take a hex wrench and remove the bolt that attaches each of the rear bumper pads. This reveals the metal bumper brackets behind the bumper pads.

The hitch sits on each bracket, and has two holes pre-drilled on each side. One hole lines up with the existing bolt hole; the other faces the vertical plane and requires that you drill a hole in the bracket. Then you simply use the supplied hex bolts through the corresponding holes.

Unfortunately, the hitch was not precisely fabricated. The holes that had to match the existing bracket bolt holes didn't line up close enough. I had to spend some time drilling out the holes larger in one dimension to make it line up well enough to be bolted. South Sport obviously never validated their design or manufacture of the hitch; it simply doesn't quite fit without some drill-hacking.

Michael Saal had similar trouble with his hitch, and they sent him another one. It looks much more precisely built (actual right-angle corners!), and is made of slightly thinner, crisper metal. I would suggest if you get one of the crummy ones, ask for a new one before you start drilling. Now that I've drilled bolt holes in the bumper brackets, a new hitch might require slightly different bolt hole locations to be drilled, so I'll keep this one. Actually, I may drill a second horizontal bolt hole to make it even more solidly attached.

The storage box was already mounted to the trailer frame. I had to complete the assembly. The frame was very easy for two people to lift, but much too large for one person to manage. So you'll definitely need an assistant to get it to your work area. Once there, you can assemble it yourself. I did this all on the garage floor. It is helpful, but not vital, to have a couple of objects (such as sawhorses or recycle bins or milk crates or whatever) to rest the frame on, a foot or two off the floor, while you're attaching the half-axles and wheels.

The mounting bolts were already in place (loosely, with their lock nuts), so it was obvious where things had to be attached. It was pretty simple, taking an hour or two. First, I tilted the trailer up on its end, and attached the half-axles, each via four bolts. (If I were doing it again, I think I would attach the fenders first.)

Once the half-axles were on, I mounted the wheels.

Next, I attached the tongue using the two supplied U-bolts. The wiring harness was already inside the tongue, extending out each end. I fed the excess through the tunnel to the rear of the frame and connected the plug to the tail light harness connector.

The last thing I did was attach the fenders. I should have done that earlier, because once the wheels/tires are on, there's not enough room to feed the bolts through. So I took the wheels off and attached the fenders. The fenders were another flawed part (remember the misaligned hitch?). There are four bolts that go through holes in the base of the fender and then through holes in the frame. But on each side, the holes were poorly aligned. Two were fine, a third was offset enough to be difficult, and a fourth was so misaligned that the bolt couldn't possibly go through. So each fender is attached with only 3 of 4 bolts. It's OK and the fenders seem to be solidly attached, but clearly the manufacturing and testing process at South Sport is not very good when it comes to certain attachment alignment points.

There's a wiring harness in the tool box for the rear lights. I had to attach the rear license plate frame, which has its own light. On the inside, this light's wire is clipped to a brown wire in the wiring harness. The harness runs through a hole in the floor and ends in a four-pole connector. As noted above, this connector plugs into the harness that extends from the trailer tongue. One more little manufacturing defect: the ground wire at the rear end of the tongue harness had nowhere to attach. The reason is seen when compared to Michael Saal's identical trailer: his ground wire ends at the rear end of the tongue (not the tunnel farther to the rear) where there is a ground wire screw. If the ground wire is not attached, the trailer lights do not work correctly. As a temporary solution I wedged the ground wire terminal between the tool box and the tunnel; after a couple of disconnects, it stayed in place OK. But I need to either drill for another grounding screw, or extend the ground wire to the existing screw on the tongue.

I picked up a trailer wiring harness at U-Haul. At one end it has a connector with test lights. The connector has one plug for hooking up to a U-Haul trailer, and another for a four-pole connector. (I had to clip the plastic surround of my trailer's connector to make it fit.) At the Boxster end, the harness has three wires that get clipped into the left tail light module wires (tail light, brake light, turn signal), and one wire that gets clipped into the right side (turn signal). The clip method is nice and clean and easy, involving no wire stripping or cutting.

What you do have to do is figure out which wire is which. I will describe how the wiring on my '98 Boxster is color-coded. It should be the same on all Boxsters, but you might want to verify that the colors match the pin numbers in case it varies between model years or something like that. Here are step-by-step instructions for attaching the wiring harness.