Xoutpost.com - Mud Flap Installation Tips

Contributed by: TurnAround

Couple things..

You
can do it without removing the wheels, but you'll need a right angle
mini-rachet with a philips bit. Lemme explain.. it's this 3" long
miniature rachet tool that has a small (about 1/8") hex head drive on
it. It'll take the standard set of hex bits... screw driver bits.. torx
bits.. square drive bits.. Handiest little tool you'll ever buy. I've
used mine a bazillion times to get into small places.

Your drill
is no doubt a lot larger, so you have to get inventive drilling the
holes. What I do is did was drill some of the holes where I could
pretty much line the drill up to a 90 degree angle.. and still not hit
the tire. This is the rear wheels we're talkin' here. Once you get a
couple of them drilled (holding the flap up against there) then go
ahead and put in the two or three screws you were able to do. There's
also one or two bolts that come off of the wheel well's vinyl in the
first place, and then go through the mud flap and back into the spot
where they came out. After you've got a few of these on, then what you
can do is drill a smaller hole than what you've been doing.. and drill
'em at an angle. This is 'cause the tire is in the way. The angle is
ok, cuz you can hand-force those remaining screws into their holes with
the mini rachet. Now see.. if you hadn't secured the flap on there
first with some screws that went in at 90 degrees, then these last few
funny angled ones would try to "walk" the mud flap this way or that.

The front wheels are a breeze. Fire up the engine and turn the wheel to the side. Presto... mega easy full access for drilling.

You can skip the mini rachet and funky angle drilling on the rear... by removing the rear wheels to get full access.

Now..
Be berry berry careful where you drill the "extra" holes. Some of them
there holes are a no brainer. They're already in the mud flap. You
remove the bolt already in through the car's vinyl wheel well and
re-install them through the flap. But you then have to drill those few
extra holes. It is ENTIRELY possible... to not drill far enough inward
and end up drilling through the flap ok.. but then when you pull the
flap off.. you just either completely missed the car's vinyl fender
flare, or worse yet.. you partially mauled it up. Ask me how I know
this :-P

Hold the flap up against there, estimate where the
additional holes will go, mark 'em with a sharpie pen, pull the flap
away, and make your best estimate as to whether or not you've marked
the hole far enough in to hit the car's fender flare in just the right
spot. Why does this matter? What if you decide to remove the flaps some
day.

Lastly, you should press the flaps up against there and
study where they hit the car's fender flares and vinyl cladding. Pull
the flap away, and then carefully sand the sharp edges of the flap to
round them just barely. I used 320 grit wet paper (sanding it dry)
followed by 400 grit. The reason for doing this extra little step is
that if you ever do decide to remove the flaps, you'll see exactly
where the flaps were rubbing on the car's clading from road vibration,
and have now worn a "whitish line" into the car's black vinyl cladding.
aaaand .. ask me how I know that one too :-P

They're brilliantly well engineered flaps, but they're sharp as hell at the edges.

I
found the little tape bits to be worthless, as vinyl is essentially
like teflon, plus I Zaino Z-16 my vinyl. It's slick. Tape ain't gonna
stick for long.

I use my flaps to protect the X during the
winter months, and then remove them in the spring. I've actually added
additional flat flap extensions to them to make them even more
effective. Looks a bit redneck, but then I don't sand blast off my
paint from skiing trips either. :-)