I do hit me up

 

Hopefully getting these installed sunday.

 

pm sent

 

I took some pictures when I installed the fender braces yesterday. The threaded insert worked like a charm. After hitting the installer piece with an impact wrench, the threaded holes felt strong enough to be able to suspend most of the front end weight of the car (not that you ever would.)

The only problem came when reinstalling my fender and I found that there wasn't enough clearance at the front corner of the brace. The In the later pictures you can see how much material I had to remove to get the fender to fit without touching the braces. Its possible my car is just different, but i'm surprised that this wasn't noticed during the test fittings before shipping. Not difficult to remedy, just took a lot of back and fourth between shaving and testing.

The threaded inserts seem really useful for projects like this. Anyone know what they are officially called, or where inserts of different sizes can be bought?

 

That is weird, I specifically took pictures showing them the clearance and how it was fine on my car.. They requested I do that so people wouldn't have to mess with them

 

Boog did your insert piece just slide in? It looks like yours is in already before you use the impact gun so I guess I'm confuse on how it is supposed to work.

 

I'm going to tackle this tomorrow and try to do a step by step walk through for anyone who still needs help or hasnt installed them yet.

But I do have a question, do the side skirts need to come off to get the fenders off? I havent looked at the mounting points yet to see what I'm working with.

 

DIY:
1. Jack up your car
2. remove wheels
3. remove under tray
4. remove fender splash guards
5. remove front bumper and grill
6. remove headlights
7. remove side skirts
8. remove battery cover
9. remove fenders (don't forget the bolt that you have to open the door all the way to get to)
10. remove bolts on door hinges (just one on each set)
11. install the crush socket for the front of the fender brace to mount to (YOU NEED A DECENT IMPACT WRENCH)
12. install the fender braces
13. put everything back together.

 

The insert was slightly smaller than the hole in the frame, so I just made sure to keep it pressed tightly to the frame while using the impact driver. After the driver stopped turning (rated at 230ft-lbs but I cant imagine it puts out over 150) the insert was fully collapsed around the sheet metal.

For the side skirts to give some clearance I needed to remove the two end screws, the bottom plastic push pin, the first three bottom bolts, and pull the skirts away to pop the front two clips.


Edit: To clarify, the bottom two fender bolts and behind the side skirts. It might be possible to remove the fender without removing the front of the side skirts but it would be way more trouble than its worth.

 

I didn't need to remove my headlights. They never got in the way.

 

yeah you probably don't have to remove the headlights, but its so easy I did it just to have more room.

also I think my aftermarket sides blocked the fender bolts, or just made it where I didn't want to mess with working around them.

 

I didnt have to do steps 1-7 what we did at the shop was take the battery cover off, unbolt the fender liners from the fenders with the wheels still mounted, drop the bumper to the ground so we wouldnt have to take the under tray off, then unbolted half the side skirts, took off the kick plates then removed fenders, install braces, and put everything back together we did it in about 2 hours. That was with me and my buddy talking crap here and there and with 2 sets of tools that way he did one side i did the other. Only thing i had to do is turn the wheel to one side to the other every now and then for clearance it probably would have been easier to jack the car and take them off but it wasnt needed. First impression from the little driving i did afterwards was the front does feel stiffer but i didnt have much of a chance to hit my local S-turns the way i wanted to. (cop on the road)

 

yeah you might be able to get away with not pulling some things off, but for me I felt it was easier to just remove it all. I also wanted to check out some other stuff while I was in there.

 

Maybe I'm a dummy but I guess I'm not sure how the threaded piece stays in the hole if it is smaller in diameter. Is it sinking into the metal? I will try again this week and see if I can get it to work.

 

It stays after you crush it.


Before trying to crush one I didn't see what would keep both the impact nut and the threaded insert from spinning in the hole, but hand tightening the insert and impact nut assembly gave the impact driver something to start biting against.