Hi,

Yep I can see it to be a nice project with challenges.
Looks good from what I can tell and definitely a bit tricky too!

Isn’t that part made of heavy plastic? Similar to an air scoop or front air dam as I remember.

If I had to do it, I’m guessing, is it’s about projecting down from a “lined-in” position made on the hitch to a template card on a surface ground below hitch.

This would require mounting the hitch up there twice.
Once without the shield there but sighting and measuring where the shield was from the mounting points.
This would turn into a height line later as I go.

The shield distance is Using that back distance and the By putting a string wrapped around the hitch for those two entryways on the hitch.
The string Going out and over to each side and strung out across where the shield attaches or hang normally.
Sight the line parallel to the mount holes and straight with the muffler.
The string will have to be wrapped loosely and adjusted for an elliptical fit.
May have to tape the string lightly in places to you get it there aligned.

Mark the location of the string being around the hitch. This is the contact points the the shield would hit.

Remove the marked hitch and stand it up vertically @ 90 degrees on a template sheet.
The take a square off the board and upwards to project the two points back downward onto the cardboard. Do this every where the square contact the marks left on the hitch by the string position.
Marking the string line with a white paint pen, is what I like or a sharpie, if it can give you enough contrast.

The will give you a set of dots of exactly where the hitch holes need to be.
Now draw a line to connect the dots.

Then here’s the big deal get tricky is having the width of the hitch to fit through the drawn circles.

You have to make another circle larger a bit than the dotted one vertically but Mostly in the direction laterally is the concern.
This gives you some, that you are comfortable with clearances around the tubing vertically.

But as we see more is needed to fit the hitch into shield with side ways movement.
I see you were a little wider but that had to happen. You did a good job IMO.
I’m late on helping you contain the larger vertical openings.

The instructions apparently were misleading all right.
If people’s feet were all identical there wouldn’t be a need for custom shoe cobblers either.
Square or round tubing require different bending fixtures but the “three points” have to be geometrically the same.
Trick to some of this was or is, how each hitch could be drawn.

I see the FRUSTRATION that lead to the extra cutting vertically.
I know you feel bummed but who’s looking underneath there on a regular basis?
Standing up you don’t see it.
Just like a dent or paint scrape on the other side from the driver never seems to get fixed.



Like I say, Looks 👀 very good 👀 as many throw away that shield or switch it out, back and forth, if it bothers them.

Phil