So I ordered a Draw-Tite hitch on ebay from ecustomhitch on Wednesday and it showed up on Thursday. Wow! Fast delivery. That was the weekend project. Here's what I did, sorry, no pics.
1) Since I have an inclined driveway and a pair of rhino ramps, I placed the ramps under the van and had it all positioned at the top of the driveway to give me and my ample gut room to move.
2) Since the van hadn't been run for a couple of days, it was cool enough to work on right away. But if you used the van beforehand, make sure the exhaust pipe is cool to the touch cause you WILL need to touch it.
3) I laid down a large thick blanket under the work space to keep me comfortable and to catch things if they fall and won't roll away.
4) Starting from the driver's side, remove all the plastic plugs and screws you can find that hold the plastic shield up to the bottom of the cargo area. Move over to the passenger side and continue until you have all the plugs and srews removed. Hence the thick blanket. You will find that the shield is still held up by four screw-type pillars. Use a large flathead to unscrew them. Do not push against them or they will reseat back onto the bolts welded to the cargo area. Let gravity drop the shield as you enscrew each one. When everything is off, SAVE everything!
5) Oh yeah, wear eye protection cause there will be debris falling into your eyes during all this. There were push pins covering the boltholes so I just popped them out, you can throw those away. They are located on both sides of the cargo area. Here's the part where you might want to have a buddy help you, but I did it myself.
6) Working from the exhaust pipe side, wiggle the tang until you can handturn a bolt into the bolthole to secure the hitch into place. I used the uppermost hole so there's maximum movement allowed for adjustments. Them I did the other side's bottom most hole to even it out. Again, hand tight. After screwing in all six bolts, use a ratchet set to tighten the bolts the rest of the way. I didn't have a torgue wrench so I tightened the bolts until I couldn't turn them anymore. All the while doing a criss cross pattern on the bolts like you would a wheel.
7) The instructions said the plastic shield had to be trimmed of 90% off it, but I reused the whole thing. I did have to cut off the two pillars near the rear edge of the shield to make it slide between the hitch and the cargo area. I also had to make a cut along the driver's side part of the shield to let the hitch come through. Then I used black zip ties to close the cut. There's a hump that runs along the whole rear of the shield that just so happens to be at the exact spot of the hitch so I flattened it out and the whole shield slid into place. I then used all the screws and plastic plugs to hold the shield back into place(remember I said to save all those?).
Actually, it tool longer for me to work out the procedure to put the plastic shield back into place than it took me to put the hitch on.
Thanks for reading my loooooong post and I hope it helps you in any way to install a hitch yourself and save you some money. Any questions or comments are welcome. BTW, the manufacturer number is 51080-986 from Draw-Tite. Cost $125.69 total. Free shipping. HTH.
And the hole is just enough for the metal part to poke through. And the zip tie is black so it matched perfectly with the glossy black finish of the hitch. The good part of it is that I still retain the coverage of the shield tp protect the undercarriage. 
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