Installation Time
(approx) 1 Hour
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
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It's Joe from AmericanTrucks. And in this video, we're going over the Smittybilt M1 Fender Flares in black, fitting all '09 to '18 Ram 1500s. Now, this is gonna be a great option for you if you're looking for a no-drilling-required, budget-friendly set of fender flares that's gonna give you a nice riveted look and at the same time giving you a little bit more coverage over those tires.So what do we have going on with the M1 fender flares? First things first, let's talk a little bit about build quality. What are these things made of? Well, that is gonna be an OEM grade, high-quality ABS plastic. You got that black finish on there with a very, very light texture to it. It's also UV and heat-resistant. These are also 100% paintable. So if you are looking to go with a body color match instead of just the standard black outlook, you absolutely could do so.Now, these fender flares specifically, they're gonna give you a riveted look. These are not riveted onto the fender. These T40 Torx bolts here, they're literally just bolted to the fender flare itself. We'll show you what that looks like in just a second on how to get those installed. But if you're not a fan of that, we do have plenty of options on the site that will give you a smooth appearance instead of this riveted look if that's more your style.Now, another reason you might be looking into a set of fender flares like this one, if you plan on running a bunch of negative offset or you're running a huge wheel spacer, sometimes tires do tend to poke beyond the body lines of your truck, and that is an issue as far as most states are concerned. Your tires need to be inboard as far as states laws and co. If you want to pass inspection, you might be interested in a fender flare set that like this one. These are gonna give you an extra inch and a half of tire coverage which does not seem like a lot, but that does make all the difference when it comes to passing inspection and not passing inspection sometimes.Now, one thing I like about these, and this isn't specific to the M1 fender flares, a lot of fender flare kits have something similar in them nowadays, but you get a bunch of rubber gasket material. You can see that on this outside edge here. It's held on with 3M double-sided tape. Again, we're gonna show you how to get that installed in just a second. But the idea here is to keep the plastic off of the paintwork, so if you do ever want to take these off, the paint underneath this thing is gonna be good as new when you do.Next up, let's talk a little bit about pricing, and like I said earlier, these are gonna be really budget-friendly, looking at about 300 bucks for the set of 4. Also included in that price is gonna be a limited lifetime warranty from Smittybilt. Before we move on to the install, one thing I do have to make a quick note of, this is gonna be specific for the 1500, so if you have a Ram Rebel, body lines are a little bit different, this is not gonna work out for you unfortunately. However, I'm sure there are some fender flare kits out there that will.But with that said, install here not gonna be difficult at all. Like I mentioned, no drilling required, no modifications required to get these installed on your truck either, and for that, they're gonna get an easy one out of three wrenches on our difficulty meter. It should take at most an hour to get these hooked up on all four corners. So without any further ado, let me show you what tools you'll need and how it's done.Tools I use for this install will include some ratchets, trim panel removal tool, some wire cutters just to clean up some of that gasket material, 10, 8 and 7-millimeter sockets as well as a T40 Torx. So before we go ahead and start our install of these fender flares, there are a couple things we have to take care of.First things first, we're gonna take care of these fake rivets. They're just gonna pop in around the edge and give it that cool riveted look. Secondly, there's a little bit of weatherstripping just to keep these hard plastic edges off of the paint of our truck. If for any reason you ever want to reverse these, this is gonna be a great thing to install, because you don't want to scratch your paint. But like I said, we're gonna start with these fake rivets. They take a T40 Torx for the outward side, and it's a 10-millimeter nyloc nut on the inside. We're going to get those all installed, and then we'll move on to the weatherstripping.All right, so that is all of our rivets taken care of. Next thing we're gonna take care of is this mess of weatherstripping. It's got some 3M double-sided tape on the back, which is really, really nice stuff, and the kit includes some alcohol prep pads. So we're gonna hit this top edge with that and then go ahead and apply our weatherstripping and trim that to size.So once you have the weatherstripping completely across, you can go ahead and trim them up. I used a pair of wire cutters. If you don't have those, scissors work just fine. Obviously, you do get two rolls of this stuff, so there is plenty to go around. Make sure you hit all four fender flares, and then we can head over to the truck and start our install. So over by our Ram, this is gonna be really, really simple. Basically all we're gonna do is remove the 7 and 8-millimeter hardware in the fender area, put up our fender flare and reinstall it. So we're gonna go ahead and grab our 7-millimeter socket. I'll tell you exactly which bolts to remove. We're gonna start with these two right here where the front bumper meets the fender.The next one we're gonna remove is sort of right below the HEMI badge on the fender, sort of behind the tire. And we're also gonna have to remove this piece of molding here. These are both 8-millimeter bolts, so we're gonna have to swap sockets to get that outta here. And there's also a pushpin down here. We're gonna remove that in a second.Now, this upper 8-millimeter screw that we just removed to get that piece of molding off, that actually is not gonna go through our fender flare, so we're gonna reinstall that now just to hold our liner in place. Now, this point is just as simple as putting the fender flare up and reinstalling all that hardware. One thing I do want to recommend, you should probably give this area a good clean before you trap any dirt underneath this thing.So the rear is pretty much gonna be the same exact process. We're gonna stay on our 8-millimeter socket and get most of this hardware out of there. There is one bolt in front of the rear tire that we're gonna skip. So that screw can come out, this one is gonna stay, and then we can remove all the rest. Now, just like the front, we do have to remove this piece of molding except it's a little bit longer, there are gonna be two pushpins in here. Let's take our trim panel tool. And be careful with these. As you can see, they do sometimes break, but these are easily replaceable.Again, make sure you clean your fender off, and then you can go ahead and install the fender flare. Now, after you have this side hooked up, you're gonna go over to the other side, and it's gonna be the same exact thing, just mirror it. But that's gonna do it for my review and install of the Smittybilt M1 Fender Flares in black, fitting all '09 to '18 Ram 1500s. As always, guys, thank you so much for watching. Make sure you keep it right here at AmericanTrucks for all things Ram.
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Installation Info
Installation Time
(approx) 1 Hour
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
Installation Guides
What's in the Box
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