Gather ‘round, kids, and let me tell you a brief story about how changing my fender flares proper fucked me:
So I decide that I want a bit more tire coverage, but not full coverage, and I decide to buy a set of Rugged Ridge 4.75 in fender flares. They were on sale, I was already on a spending spree upgrading my lift kit, and had a little extra money to burn, so I figured, why not? A few days later, they arrive, along with some Rugged Ridge thermoplastic rocker panels, which were also on sale (I like the look, but I was trying to avoid putting more holes in my tub than necessary... Lol to that idea!) So on my next day off I start the install. The first 3 Mopar fenders come off with pretty much no issue (I broke a bolt in a nutsert while removing one of the rear fender flares, but I could access the nutsert from the wheel well to cut it off, so no real concern there). Things are still going pretty well.
Then I get to the last bolt of the last fender flare, on the drivers side: That sucker started to come out, but then stopped, and the nutsert started spinning. Fuck. So I take a closer look at the area, and I realise that there’s a bit of rust in the panel. I do my trusty screwdriver test, and low and behold, it’s rusted through. Decent size hole (I posted pics a while back, if anyone needs a refresher). Double fuck. So I bite the bullet, and just yank on the bastard until the whole nutsert comes out. I call up my mechanic, ask him if he knows a welder. $100 I’ve got a patched panel, and can finish the install. Yippee, right? Wrong.
Now I’m paranoid, so I go looking for other rusty spots. I find 3, with one rusted through, but it’s a small hole, maybe the width of a pencil. Ok... fuck it, I’ll try Bondo. Worse come to worse, I take it into a shop and get it professionally fixed. What’s the harm?
So I grind out all of the rust until I get to good metal in all 3 spots, slather on some Bondo, hit those suckers with filler/primer, paint them, polish them, then wax them (apparently I shouldn’t have done this last part, shout out to
@TJ Hunnicutt for the heads up!
). I wait a few days, for my next day off, and then I finish my fender install. Yeaahhhh buddy! Right? Nah.
On another day off, I decide to put the rocker panels on. They’re supposed to be secured using double-sided rape and 3 screws. I decide to just use the double-sided tape that comes with them. That proves to be a joke and a half. Ok, no biggie, I’ll replace the shitty tape with stronger tape, and I’ll use the screws. Now, I have the Body Armor 4x4 steps, which are secured by the 3 middle body mounts. I put them on last summer, and made sure to use antiseize when I reinstalled them, because before last summer they hadn’t been touched in 20 years, and this is a rust belt Jeep.
So I start on the driver’s side, righty tighty, lefty loosey, or as I like to think about it, counter-clockwise to loosen, clockwise to tighten. Which would have been fine if I was under the Jeep staring directly at them. But I wasn’t. I was looking at them from the wrong direction. So I stripped not one, not two, but all THREE of the internal nuts. Of course, I didn’t realise this until I went to reinstall the step. Fuck. My. Life
I removed the step completely and managed to snug the body mounts up enough so that if I hit a bump I don’t have to worry about losing anything. Then I went inside, poured myself a tall few glasses of (mostly) rum, and coke, and then went online and ordered a new torque box. Which, of course, was backordered. So I’m waiting for that to arrive, hopefully in the next week or two.
Sorry for the long post, but I needed to vent about my stupidity....
...The rocker panels and fender flares do look good tho
I broke the very tip of the windshield plastic tab maneuvering it away from the roll cage. I’ll probably use epoxy to fix it, or see if Davey’s has a replacement. Either way, I won’t be super concerned about it as long as there’s no leaking
