Need both front and rear? If you want a full set (front and rear), please select the “Set” option in the “Location” dropdown list above. This will make sure you are not charged excessive shipping. If you have ever removed those little white plastic clips on a JL, you have undoubtedly formed an opinion about them. With the OEM fender configuration, they are perfectly sufficient. However, when you split the fender and remove the plastic bracing, they become a weak link. More accurately, we are asking them to do something they were not designed to do. For this reason, we have developed a product to replace them. Our Jeep JL Fender Retention kit provides substantially more clamping force and a better mechanical connection. Unlike other companies that sell a “bolt kit”, we have designed a rectangle washer that utilizes existing square holes on either side of the center pin hole. The studs in our plastic washer grab those square holes and provide a very secure mounting system and prevent you from over-tightening the bolt, which in turn, prevents you from smushing (technical term) the plastic around the bolt. Take a close look at the fender without the white plastic clips installed. You’ll notice that there is a split where the bolt goes. Without our plastic washer, the fender could rip out and allow the bolt to slip through the slot. The best way to prevent that with a bolt-only kit is to over-tighten the bolt. We use a very specific nutcert with our kit. This nutcert does not require drilling to go into the vehicle. We searched numerous suppliers to find this specific component. All of the other nutcerts we tested required drilling the fenders. This is a no-drill kit. Each kit consists of the following: Plastic fender washers 6mm nutcerts 6mm wide flange head bolts (zinc plated) Basic Installation Process As with most things, there are a lot of ways to install a rivet nut. There are rivet-nut specific tools available online. There are also quite a few ways to do this without any special tools. One common method is by using the stack of hardware (not included) shown here. Using this method, you would assemble the hardware stack as shown to the right, thread the bolt into the rivet nut, and then insert the entire assembly into the hole in the Jeep fender. Next, you would use a box end wrench to hold the 8mm nut. Then, tighten the bolt to crush the rivet nut. If you have access to a small impact driver, this is a good time to use it. Once the nut is crushed, you can remove the bolt and remaining hardware stack, leaving the rivet nut installed in the fender. NOTE: Rear Kits In order to simplify our product offerings, the rear kit (for JL and JT) includes 26 sets of bolts, nutcerts, and location washers. On the JT this assumes that you will not be retaining the black plastic trim that runs along the bottom edge of the rear flare. If you want to retain that trim and wish to attach it to the body, let us know before your order ships and we will be glad to include the extra two sets at no cost. For the JL, you will have two extra sets of bolts, nutcerts, and washers if you do not retain the rear flare trim. If you do retain the rear trim, you will use all 26 sets. Special Note If you are using our inner fenders, you will not install the nutcerts into the body for these four bolts on each side. The mounting brackets that ship with our inner fenders already have nutcerts in them for these holes. Our inner fenders will ship with four of the fender retention washers for each side. You’ll need to purchase this product to replace the remainder of the white plastic clips.
