Barricade HD Flat Fender Flares (07-18 Jeep Wrangler JK)

Video Review & Installation

Hey, guys. So today, I'm here with the Barricade HD Flat Fender Flares, fitting all 2007 to 2018 JK Wranglers. So, if you're looking for exterior accessories that are going to completely change the form and function of your Wrangler, fender flares are a really good place to start, and this option by Barricade is gonna be a really good one to take a look at.So, this is going to completely change the function of your Wrangler, being a lot more durable than that factory flare with the HD materials, and it's gonna be able to hold its own while it's out on the trail. So, if you do take a hit, this will be a-okay. Now, this is also going to open up a lot of room in that wheel well for larger wheels and tires, and better articulation and up travel off-road, which is going to make quite the difference if you have a larger tire like this one. Now, this is also going to not only be functional, but also change up the whole aesthetic of your Wrangler, giving you a very aggressive and off-road look.So, not only are these gonna help out form and function, but these are gonna help out your wallet as well, being very affordable at roughly $300. And that's gonna include all four fender flares. Now, in comparison to some other options on the page, like I said, this is gonna include all four, making this a one-stop shop, and those other options on the page are usually going to be split between the front and the rear.So, these are gonna have a lot of simplicity in their design, which is gonna bring that price point down. But I personally like that, I think it adds a nice touch to the Wrangler without going over the top.Now, in comparison to some more expensive choices, you will see some more bells and whistles, including marker lights, or the option to swap over your factory marker light, or you might see a larger flare that's gonna have a lot more tire coverage.Now, in my personal opinion, if you're not necessarily concerned with that extra marker light or that extra coverage, and you're looking for something that's going to be very affordable, functional, and stylish, then this option by Barricade is gonna be a really good one to take a look at.So, this is going to be a two out of three wrenches on the difficulty meter as far as install goes. There is gonna be some very minor drilling involved. However, that is pretty simple. So, speaking of that install, let's jump into that now.Tools that I used for my install were an impact wrench, a drill, a pair of safety glasses, a rivnut tool, a center punch, an 11/32-inch drill bit, an 11/64-inch drill bit, and a 3/32-inch drill bit, a 4-millimeter and 5-millimeter extended Allen key, an 8-millimeter and 10-millimeter deep socket, a box cutter, a marker, a pair of scissors, a pry tool, and a trim removal tool, a 13-millimeter wrench, and a 3/8-inch drive ratchet.So, if you have a larger wheel and tire, what I would recommend to do is take a floor jack and just jack up the front axle, that's gonna give us a little bit more room to work with. So, I'm gonna place this under our front lower control arm, jack it up, and then we can head inside our wheel well to take off our fender. And we don't need to bring the tire all the way off the ground, we just want to kind of lift the body up and make that tire sag.So, now that we have a little bit more room to work with, what we can do first is unplug our marker light on the side. If you just pull this back and then reach under here, you'll be able to depress that clip and pull it back. So, because this is kind of in a gritty location, it may be a little bit difficult just because there may be some extra mud in there. But once that's unplugged, we just have to remove one clip that's holding the wiring harness. So, I'm gonna use a trim removal tool, just remove that clip so we don't damage our marker light once we remove our fender. And then we can just tuck that back for the time being and start removing our bolts.So, what we can do next is remove the six 10-millimeter bolts that are holding in our fender. So, I'm gonna use a 10-millimeter socket and my impact wrench to remove those. So, there's gonna be one tucked up inside this inner fender liner here, you can see the access hole. It may be a little bit difficult to see. However, if you use a deep socket, you should be able to grab onto it, and then the last one on the side.So, now that most of our hardware on the inner wheel well is disconnected from our actual fender here, we can start to pry this away. Now, this is going to be held in by a series of clips onto the body. I'm gonna take a trim removal tool or a pry tool and just pull the fender lightly away from the body and kind of pry on it. Now, the clips may break, it's okay, we're not gonna be able to use them again, and we're not gonna be using them for our new fenders. So, they are really just a one-use-only clip, so if they break, it's fine.All right. So, if you have any of these clips left in the body of your Wrangler, you can just take your pry tool or a trim removal tool and remove them. Now, these will fly, so make sure you have your hand in front of it. I would just recommend to clean this up after you take your fender off, just because there's a lot of grit hiding behind here, and this is a good opportunity to do it.So, before we go ahead and install our new fender flares by Barricade, I did wanna tell you guys a little bit more about them, especially in comparison to your factory setup. Now, right off the bat, these are gonna be a lot more durable, made of a 1.5-millimeter carbon plated steel. So, these are gonna be able to hold their own while they're out on the trail in comparison to your factory setup, which is made of a plastic material. So, if you do take a hit with this, this isn't going to break, this is going to bend at the very least, or this is actually going to come off of your Wrangler. So, something like this is going to be a lot more durable.So, this is also gonna have a texture, black powder coat finish, on top, which is gonna do a great job of protecting that steel underneath from any rust or corrosion. And it's also gonna match with any other texture black accessories that you already have on your Wrangler. As you can tell, we have a couple on the Jeep behind us, and this is gonna match very well with that.Now, this is also gonna have a couple more benefits in comparison to the factory setup. Now, this factory fender flare is going to be a little bit thicker as far as the construction goes. So, this isn't going to give you as much articulation and up travel as a flat fender would. Now, this is going to be a little bit thinner as far as width goes, so this isn't gonna completely cover the whole tire. So, I would keep that in mind when you are shopping around for fender flares. However, this is going to provide a whole lot more room in the wheel well for articulation in comparison to your factory setup.Now, the only thing that you're not able to carry over with these new fender flares is gonna be your factory inner fender liner. You will have to do a little bit of modification in order to get that mounted up with this new flare if you're looking to keep that, or I would recommend to upgrade to a new inner fender liner. But as you can tell, this is actually mounted to the actual fender itself.So, the other thing that you're not able to swap directly over from the factory flare to the new Barricade one is gonna be that factory marker light. However, there are a lot of solutions if you are looking to keep that extra light on the side here. Now, enough about these two on the table, let's go ahead and install our new one.So, before we actually mount up our fender flare, we do have to add some gasket material on the face of our fender, and that is going to protect our paint on our body from any scratching or any damage. So, this is going to be decently long, I would recommend to grab some scissors or a razor blade, because we are going to be trimming this, or a box cutter, and then also a drill, which we will use a little bit later. But we actually are just going to cut out the holes on each of the mounting locations with the drill, because it is a little bit easier to do it that way. I'm gonna flip this on its side, and we can just start to line the face here.So, at this point, we can take a pair of scissors, cut off the excess. And then what I like to do, since this part is still going to be attached to the body of our Jeep, is just add a little bit more. I also wanna have it sit as washed as possible. And then I would recommend to save this extra because we are going to use some of this extra on our rear fender flare as well as another strip of that. What I'm gonna do next is actually grab a box cutter or a razor blade, I would recommend a box cutter, just because you have a handle here. And then we're just gonna trim around the bottom so we don't necessarily see it when we mount up our fender flare. Now, you don't have to do this part, but it just will make it look a little bit cleaner once you mount it up.So, at this point, what we're gonna do is open up the mounting holes now that we've put this gasket material on it. We've obviously covered up all of the holes in order to mount this up. So, we do have to kind of drill out the plastic or the foam material that's on the back here in order to mount up our fender flare. So, what I'm gonna do is just run my hand along the bottom and see where the mounting holes are. Just kind of poke up on the material, take a pair of scissors, just a mark where we need to draw that out. Then what I'm gonna do, I have an 11/32-inch drill bit, this is a drill bit that we're gonna use to drill out the body on our Wrangler. I'm just going to go back to those holes.So, at this point, we're ready to install our fender. So, what we can do now is mount up our fender. And I would recommend that you have these shorter Allen hardware, the two floor washers, and the nylon lock nut. You're gonna have six of these, and then we're also gonna have two longer bolts that we have to drill a hole out for. So, we're gonna handle these first, get this mocked up and tightened down, then we can go ahead and drill those holes.So, what I'm gonna do first is just kind of sit this over. As you can tell, that there is a little cut out for this arm here. You can just, kind of, lay the fender on that arm, it'll sit. If you have a side step, it'll sit right there. Then we can start to mount these up. So, I like to get all the hardware in first, then we can go back and tighten everything down. I usually start with one on the front and then one in the back, just to kind of level it and line everything up.All right. So, now that all of our bolts are in, what we can do is, kind of, hold this up into place and tighten them down at the same time so we have this fender exactly where we want it, and then we can draw our holes.So, what I like to do is start with the rear and the front bolt, this way we can hold it up in place and it will stay there for the most part, and then we can tighten up the middle ones.So, I'm gonna when use a 5-millimeter Allen Key, this is an extended Allen key, and my hand ratchet, as well as a 13-millimeter wrench. So, I'm gonna get it most of the way tight. And then once I feel it start to snug up, then I'm gonna hold it in place and then completely tighten it. All right. Then we can head up to our front bolt.So, our next step is to mark a spot where we're gonna drill our holes. I'm gonna use a center punch and just mark the center of each of these holes here. Then I'm gonna take an 11/64-inch drill bit, and we're gonna drill a pilot hole in each of these two mounting locations.Now, you also are gonna have this part of your body on the back here, part of your A-pillar. We are gonna drill through that as well because we have to stick the whole bolt through and put a nut on the back.So, after we've made our pilot hole, we can step up to the 11/32-inch drill bit that we need to use to drill the actual mounting hole. So, after you've finished drilling the holes, I would recommend to add a light coat of paint to the bolt holes. And then what we can do is add our spacer inside, take our longer bolt for this top hole, run that through, and then we can add a flat washer and a nylon lock nut on the other side. And then we can take our smaller spacer, add that at our bottom hole, grab our shorter bolt, and repeat that process. So, we can tighten them down with that same 5-millimeter Allen key and 13-millimeter wrench. Now, we can start our uninstall in the back.So, for the back in our fender liner, this is going to be held in by six clips. So, as you can tell, there are two down here. There's also gonna be one up at the top on just the one side of the inter fender liner, and then we can remove the other ones on the other side. But I'm gonna take a trim removal tool, go back behind the clip, and it should pop out. Sometimes they're easy, like that one, sometimes they give you a little bit of trouble. If they do give you a little bit of trouble, you can go behind the actual liner, and that should give you more space to pry on. Then we can head to the other side of the liner. So, just like we did with the front, what we can do is kind of pull this forward and start to pry it off the body.So, just like the front, we have to add our weatherstripping or our gasket material to the back of our fender before we can mount it up. And it's just gonna be the same process, we're gonna lay it down, and then we will drill all of the holes out so we can mount it up.So, we do have a lot more space on our rear fender, so we are gonna be using that extra gasket material I told you to save. So, you can just keep on taping this down. Basically, you wanna cover all of those flat places that are gonna be touching the body of our Jeep. So, usually, I'll just get the perimeter, and just cut away the excess.Now, at the bottom of your rear fender here, there are gonna be two holes, you wanna make sure that you're not covering them up with this material. All right. So, after that is completely fitted with our gasket material, what we can do now is drill out our holes.So, again, just run your hand on the bottom of it, make sure that if it does come off, we just refit it. Now, just be careful not to poke your hand. I just poke up a little bit, put the scissors up on top, move my hand away, and then just make the hole. You wanna be careful while you're doing this. All right. That should be everything. And then we can go back with our drill bit.So, after our fender flare is ready, unlike the front, we can't mount this up just yet, we have to add a couple of rivnuts to the body of our Jeep, and then we'll be able to mount it up.So, just as a safety measure, what I like to do is line this up with the body of the Jeep, and Mark, where we need to insert our rivnut. So, these top two holes, since we can access the back of them, we're going to put a nut on the back. But the other five holes, we do need to put rivnuts in.So, I just have a marker here, and I'm just going to make a mark on each of the ones where we have to put on a rivnut. Now, you don't have to be completely lined up for this step, you just wanna make sure we're mounting them in the correct mounting locations. And a little red mark will remind us of that when we pull the fender away.So, what we're gonna do next is actually widen these holes that we marked just by a little bit. So, I'm gonna take that same 11/32-inch drill bit that we used in the front and just round off these holes so we can fit in our new rivnuts. So, right now they're just a little bit undersized for what we need them for. So, that should be enough, we can do the same thing for all of our marked holes.So, now what we're gonna do is install our rivnuts, and the reason why we're installing these is because, on the top two, we'll be able to access the back of the fender to put a nut on, but on the other mounting locations, we are unable to access the back there. So, having this is gonna secure all of our hardware down.Now, there is a tool included in the kit where you can install these with, it is gonna be a little bit more time consuming. So, what I recommend to do is use a rivnut tool, and this is going to be very easily accessible at any local auto parts store. You can rent this, or very easily buy this. So, it will come in handy, and it will save a little bit of extra time. So, all we have to do is open it up, thread the rivnut on, and we'll be able to clamp this on and mount these in the holes.So, we've opened it up, what we can do is push it into the body, then we can clamp this down, and it's gonna expand that rivnut, keeping it in place so it won't spin. You can open it back up, spin this off, and that rivnut's installed. Then we can do the same thing for the other mounting holes.All right. So, what we can do next is put this up into place, making sure that we have one of our larger bolts, the 5-millimeter Allen head hardware, and we're going to hang this up into place. Once you get one bolt in, it should stay in place for the most part. We're not gonna tighten anything down just yet, we wanna get everything mounted up and threaded in. So, after we have those two on, what we can do is take our smaller 4-millimeter Allen head hardware, flat washer, and lock washer, and thread those into the rivnuts.So, once you have everything threaded in, we can start to tighten up the rivnut bolts with a 4-millimeter Allen socket. Now, again, I'll be using an extended Allen socket, just because it is a little bit easier.So, what I would like to mention is that, you should not overtighten these bolts once you have a steady tight in, I would just leave it there. The rivnuts in the back, if you tighten them too much, you will spin them out of place, and you don't wanna do that, because then you'll have a trapped bolt. So, just tighten it down to where you feel a good tightness, and then move on to the next one. So, again, just tighten it down till you feel a little bit of tension and move on to the next one.So, our last step is to secure down this bottom corner with two self-tapping screws. I'm gonna drill a very small pilot hole with a 3/32-inch drill bit, and then we'll be able to install our self-tapping screws. Just a little bit easier if you drill a hole first. So, then we can insert our self-tapping screw, take an 8-millimeter socket and our impact wrench, put a little bit of pressure on the back, and they should cut through the metal themselves.All right. So, after everything is secure and tightened down, you can repeat that process on the other side, and then you'll be all set to go.So, that's gonna wrap it up for my review and install. Make sure you like and subscribe. And for more videos and products like these, always keep it right here at extremeterrain.com.