How to Install Fender Flares 1994-2002 Dodge RAM 1500

Hey friends. It's Len here at 1A Auto. Today we're going to be working on our 1996 Dodge Ram 1500 ,and we're going to be doing some fender flares. It's going to be really easy. I can do it. You can do it too. As always, if you need these or any other parts, you can always check us out 1aauto.com. Thanks.

Okay, friends, so we're going to be working on our 1996 Dodge Ram 1500. As always with these vehicles, what you're going to notice is there's a little bit of rust/rot going around the wheel wells. That's because this thing's been working its whole life. It's been pushing snow, it's been slinging salt, it's been off-roading. It's been doing all these really great things, tons of great adventures. And yeah, you know what, the Northeast, New England, we got a lot of snow, and slush, and salt all over our roads all the time almost it seems, and so it just got a little rotted out.

The hardware that came with the fender flare kit is all great. It's really useful as long as you've got a vehicle that the fenders aren't rotted out on. Ours are, so we went ahead and we got ourselves some self tapping screws. These have a special head on the top, and they allow you to pretty much make your own hole wherever you need it. So if you've got some good metal under there, use these right? If you've got great metal under there and you have no rot, no rust, no anything. Use this, right? It comes with awesome instructions, tells you exactly how to mount it up.

Our particular application, unfortunately, we couldn't do any of that, but what we did do is make sure that it was nice and clean, as clean as we could, where the fender flares are going to be sitting along. That's super important because if you get dirt or anything in between there, it's going to cause scratches on the paint. Our vehicle, we're not really too worried about scratches. I mean it's nothing perfect. Like I said, it's a work truck.

Maybe yours is your daily driver and you're so proud, and you love that thing, and you keep it nice and shined up, make sure it's clean and then you can go ahead and start mounting this up. Aside from that, let's go ahead and do it.

All right, so each one of these holes right here, going all the way around, it's going to get a bolt, a washer, and a nut. The bolt and the washer come up through the outside and into the inside, and then you're just going to put the nut right like that. We're going to do the same to all of these. Bolt, washer, through, nut. All these are is aesthetic, really. It's a kind of just for decoration and I'll show you what the difference looks like here.

It's with, it's without. That's what they give you. Of course, if you needed to, for some reason, down here where you're going to be mounting with, if there's no more fender left under there and you needed to, you can go ahead and put like a nice long bolt straight into the fender. That's your prerogative. I'm not going to go ahead and tell you to do anything like that because telling somebody to drill a hole into their fender's probably never a great idea. So, the holes are there. If for some reason you wanted to do something crazy, okay.

So they were nice enough to give us the bit that you need for it. This is a Torx. It's a T40. So I'm going to hold the Torx bit bolts on the backside there, and then we'll use a 13 millimeter on this side. Snug that up, and do the same thing right on down the line. We're going to do all four fender flares just like this and we'll be able to move along.

All right, so I've got a little bit of rubbing alcohol on my rag here. I'm just going to go along the inside lip along right here, and along this edge. You don't necessarily need to go around the outer edge, just the inner edge and along the very lip here. And that's just to make sure that this is clean, doesn't have any oils on it or anything from shipping. Because when we put on the rubber molding going around this, it needs to stick going along the inside. So to do this, to help you along, you're going to use something as simple as a pocket screwdriver. This one's bent. It's nothing special. You can use a plain old one. This is just nice because it kind of lets me go a little bit away from the fender. And if you wanted to, you could just bend yours, whatever. It doesn't matter.

To continue though, this little red strip right here peels off, and then the gray area is a stick. Okay. It's a little sticker. So all you're going to do is peel this kind of a way a little bit, and then you're going to go right over the edge.

My man on the edge. Here we are.

I'm going to start right at this corner, as close as I can get. I'm going to come this way with it, just like this, pressing down. And I need to get this outer black area along the outer area of the fender cover itself. Okay, so as you go, you just peel the red little by little, and as you peel it, just make sure you stick it along the inside of the fender cover.

I'm going to pull this red right here as I go, and as I go I'm going to make sure that I squeeze up against here. And that's just going to put the rubber up against the fender flare.

Okay, so now that we're at the end here, I'm just going to trim this. That looks wonderful. All right. I'd say we're clear for install.

Okay. So the way that the fender flares going to go over this, this is going to be in the way, so we're just going to remove this one bolt. Your vehicle may or may not have this.

Let's get it out of the way real quick. There we are.

Cool. We'll leave that right there. The fender flare's going to come right down here. Easy peasy.

All right, so we're just going to go ahead and put in some of these self tapping screws along the holes. We have some other brackets and whatnot that came with the kit, so if these don't work, we'll use those.

Here we are.

All right.

We'll get this one lined up, and we'll be able to move along.

Washer and my nut to the backside there. 13 millimeter wrench.

Bonk, bonk, bonk. That's my thing.

How's that?

Perfect.

Yeah?

That's it. Right there. Flush with the fender.

That's the one.

Okay. Where should I start?

I don't know. Wherever.

Let's start in the middle. Why not?

Booyah. Okay, so that was real easy. The only thing is is maybe it's not so much a one person job. That's why we have a team here at 1A Auto. Teamwork makes the dream work. Of course, we want to show you how it's done. If you have an extra person hanging around, why not? Got one person holding it, the other person installing the hardware. Easy peasy. Thanks man.

Anytime.

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