ADVNTURR
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2024
- Threads
- 6
- Messages
- 60
- Reaction score
- 105
- Location
- Cleveland, OH
- Vehicle(s)
- '24 Ranger XLT 2.7L, '16 VW Golf R, '11 Nissan GT-R, '05 Nissan 350Z
- Thread starter
- #1
I generally like the look and function of rally style mud flaps on vehicles. I've had great luck with the RallyArmor ones on my Golf R daily but neither they or RockBlokz are currently offering a fitment for the non-Raptor models. After doing some searching I found that RallyFlapz out of the UK did offer a fitment for my XLT and after selecting all the options, the price with shipping actually came out about the same as the US Raptor options. About 2 weeks after placing my order, my HD 5mm thick matte black flaps arrived nicely packaged with instructions, reinforcement brackets, and hardware.
RallyFlapz advertises their flaps as being wide, and they're not kidding. As made, they'd honestly be more appropriate for a Raptor and they looked entirely too wide with my stock wheel/tire package on my XLT. After a bit of trial and error, I ended up trimming 1" off the outside edge of all 4 flaps before installing. I used a straight edge and a sharp utility knife to make the cuts and then re-formed the bottom corner radius and upper chamfer before sanding the cut edges to clean everything up and make the edge look more uniform. Overall not too difficult, but added a lot to the install time.
After trimming, the rear flaps installed pretty easily and per the provided instructions with the provided hardware. Since it wasn't entirely clear in the instructions, the metal reinforcement brackets go on the inside of the flap to help support its weight and keep it from sagging. I did end up swapping out the provided plastic Xmas tree push fasteners for some ZSPEC Designs dress up hardware to make it a bit more custom and to make it easier to remove if I want to (the push fasteners were really in there)
Next came the front and things quickly went sideways because the US Rangers have an additional piece of crash structure the the UK/EU trucks do not. This square steel tube replaces some plastic liner and does not allow for all the provided hardware to be used. I've seen that someone else bent up a sheet metal bracket to deal with this issue but I decided to install a few M6 rivnuts into the tube instead.
Not called for in the instructions, but basically useless with the new flaps, I removed the factory mini-flap but retained the plastic rivscrews.
The added crash structure and related changes made using the 3 Xmas tree push fasteners provided a non-option and also left me short 1 stainless screw and cap per side. I again used some ZSPEC hardware in the rivnuts and another screw/finish washer along with a flat washer and nylock in the empty hole.
Overall happy with the finished product, even with the minor modifications I had to make for appearance and to account for the variations in the US model. Long term I may look at replacing more of their provided hardware with the ZSPEC hardware just because I Iike the look of it more, but I don't think there's anything wrong with what they provide.
Over Christmas I did an 800 mile road trip and the flaps stayed put at 75mph+ but do have a bit of a "flare" to them now.
RallyFlapz advertises their flaps as being wide, and they're not kidding. As made, they'd honestly be more appropriate for a Raptor and they looked entirely too wide with my stock wheel/tire package on my XLT. After a bit of trial and error, I ended up trimming 1" off the outside edge of all 4 flaps before installing. I used a straight edge and a sharp utility knife to make the cuts and then re-formed the bottom corner radius and upper chamfer before sanding the cut edges to clean everything up and make the edge look more uniform. Overall not too difficult, but added a lot to the install time.
After trimming, the rear flaps installed pretty easily and per the provided instructions with the provided hardware. Since it wasn't entirely clear in the instructions, the metal reinforcement brackets go on the inside of the flap to help support its weight and keep it from sagging. I did end up swapping out the provided plastic Xmas tree push fasteners for some ZSPEC Designs dress up hardware to make it a bit more custom and to make it easier to remove if I want to (the push fasteners were really in there)
Next came the front and things quickly went sideways because the US Rangers have an additional piece of crash structure the the UK/EU trucks do not. This square steel tube replaces some plastic liner and does not allow for all the provided hardware to be used. I've seen that someone else bent up a sheet metal bracket to deal with this issue but I decided to install a few M6 rivnuts into the tube instead.
Not called for in the instructions, but basically useless with the new flaps, I removed the factory mini-flap but retained the plastic rivscrews.
The added crash structure and related changes made using the 3 Xmas tree push fasteners provided a non-option and also left me short 1 stainless screw and cap per side. I again used some ZSPEC hardware in the rivnuts and another screw/finish washer along with a flat washer and nylock in the empty hole.
Overall happy with the finished product, even with the minor modifications I had to make for appearance and to account for the variations in the US model. Long term I may look at replacing more of their provided hardware with the ZSPEC hardware just because I Iike the look of it more, but I don't think there's anything wrong with what they provide.
Over Christmas I did an 800 mile road trip and the flaps stayed put at 75mph+ but do have a bit of a "flare" to them now.
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