Hey, guys.
It's Joe from AmericanTrucks.
And today, we're gonna be taking a closer look at the Proven Ground Raptor Style Fender
Flares, fitting all '15, '16 and '17 F-150s excluding the Raptor Models.
Now this is gonna be a great option for you if you're looking to get some Raptor styling
and protection over your wheel arches with a set of fender flares that even includes
a little bit of awesome accent lighting.
So what do we have going on with the Raptor style flares from Proven Ground?
Well, first thing's first, these are made out of a durable yet lightweight automotive-grade,
UV-resistant ABS plastic, again, very durable, lightweight, they're gonna do a great job
at protecting your wheel arches from any debris thrown up by the tires.
Speaking about the tires, these are also great for larger wheels and tires.
We have 35s by 12.5 on our F-150 here, and these are as near as makes no difference,
pretty much flush with this fender flare, that's a pretty big legal concern for any
guys out there that do want to run with a little bit of extra poke.
Having those covered up is required by law in most states.
And these are gonna provide two inches of coverage on each side out from the body of
your F-150 and again if you have those larger tires that might just be enough to make your
truck street legal.
This kit also brings some extra style with those two LED accent lights, one for each
side, again, just giving you that little bit of extra Raptor styling on there and the kit
even includes its own wiring harness, we're gonna show you how to splice that together
in just a second here.
Now before we do, a couple of things I want to touch on here.
If your truck is optioned with lane-keeping sensors, those are built into the fender and
these are going to cover that up so these will not work, you will lose that function.
And also if you do have mudguards on your truck, you are gonna have to lose those in
order to install these.
But with that said, these are a great product, build quality is there, fit and finish is
there, that awesome included lighting is great.
Considering the price, which is only around 300 bucks for the set of four, you really
can't beat it for what these are going to give you in terms of protection and style
for the side of your F-150.
The install, I'm gonna give a harder one out of three wrenches on our difficulty meter.
The reason I give it harder, there is a little bit of wiring involved but the wiring we're
gonna do is basically as simple as it gets, guys.
I'm gonna show you exactly where to wire this into and there's no drilling at all to get
these installed on your F-150 so they are completely reversible.
I think you can get all four sides done in about two, three hours with nothing but some
basic hand tools in the driveway.
So without any further ado, let me show you what tools you will need and how it's done.
Tools required for this install are going to include a ratchet, seven and five and a
half millimeter sockets, some scissors, wire strippers, wiring tools like vampire clips,
quick disconnects, butt connectors and spade connectors, a knife, trim panel removal tool,
sharpie, wire cutters, Channellocks, and a Phillips head screwdriver.
Now not pictured in the shop but recommended would be some quick detailer and a clean microfiber
rag.
So before we head over to our truck, we have to do a little bit of prep work on all four
of our flares.
This seal right here, this is going to apply to that leading-edge there, it's gonna keep
it off the paint of our truck, prevent any scratches.
It's got a little bit of 3M tape in the middle, so we're just going to apply this to all four
of our fender flares and then we could start working on our F-150.
Now that we have this applied all the way along this leading-edge here, we're just gonna
trim it to size with a pair of scissors.
Now that we have that trimmed to size, we're gonna do the same thing to our other fender
flares, we already caught those up off-camera.
And the next step here we're going to install these marker lights, the kit includes two
of them as well as four Phillips head screws to secure them to the front set of flares.
And we're gonna do the same thing for the other side as well.
Now before we mount up our fender flares, we got to take care of one more thing and
that is the wiring, it's easiest to do this now.
Once we have our fender flare attached, we're pretty much gonna be out of room to take care
of this, so we're gonna make sure this is where it needs to be before we mount up our
fender flare.
We're gonna wire this into the running lights, it's really up to you how you want to do this
but this is pretty much the best way in my opinion how to do it.
So we're gonna start by taking this harness here and we're just gonna find the end that
looks a little like this.
This is going to go into our running lights.
You can see after that we have a short end where this splits and then a long end where
this splits.
Long end is going to go over to the passenger side but first we have to feed all this down
behind our headlights.
So now we just have to do some wiring.
This is the same wire you guys just saw, came out right in front of that front tire.
I'm just gonna remove this heat shrink and this is gonna be pretty simple, grab a pair
of wire strippers.
Do that like that.
Do the same thing over here.
Now we're just going to attach these two wires together, you want to make sure these are
sized up correctly, you don't want any of that internal wiring exposed.
And that's not going anywhere and we're gonna do the same thing over here as well.
And we're gonna do the same thing for the positive wire as well.
Now while we're on the topic of wiring, we're also gonna take care of this side here.
We're gonna do the same thing, I'm just gonna pull off this heat shrink and we can strip
back some of this right here.
Like so.
Just strip back a little bit of this like so.
And then I'm just gonna clean up the frame.
So that's set, now I have to talk about where we're gonna wire this into.
Again, like I said, I'm gonna go to the marker light and to get to that, gonna be as simple
as just unplugging it right there.
And right here we have our positive and negative wires.
I'm gonna do this one a little bit differently since we're gonna be taking these back off
in a second.
I'm gonna go with some quick disconnects here but first, we can peel back a little bit of
this electrical tape.
Clean that up.
Now I have a little bit more wiring to work with and all we're gonna do is apply our quick
disconnects to these wires.
Now on the other side, we just have a couple of spade connectors here, those are gonna
go on just like so and then crimp down.
Make sure that's nice and snug, no wiring exposed.
Same thing over here with the black wire.
That's also good to go.
Now all we have to do, and this is why I really, really like these, is plug them in, just like
so.
Now again, if you guys want, you could go with a little bit more permanent solution
if you plan on having these on your truck for the length of your truck, that's definitely
the better option, but in our case here, I like these just because we're shooting a video,
we're gonna have to reverse this eventually.
So after that, all we're gonna do is give this a test run after we plug it back in.
So our fender flare is in a good position here, our light works.
Now we can actually mount this thing and first thing's first, we're gonna have to remove
all the five and a half millimeter hardware from our wheel well.
There's two right here, one right there, one up at the top and three at the front, all
that is gonna have to come out as well as this little plastic piece right here where
a mudflap would go.
We're gonna get that all out of the way using the air ratchet.
Now with the first one out, one thing I do want to note is you definitely want to hold
on to all this hardware, we're gonna be reusing most of it.
Now our last five and a half is right here, we're gonna swap over to the seven for these
two.
And again, 7-millimeter socket.
So now we're gonna get this little mudguard out of the way, I'm gonna use a trim panel
removal tool, it's held on with this push pin right here.
And in the back, there's just gonna be one clip that pulls right out like so.
And then over here, just gonna pry down a little bit.
Now that we have everything off, we're just gonna clean up the area a little bit especially
down there by that mudguard we just removed, some quick detailer, a clean microfiber should
make quick work of what little dirt there is on this truck.
So now we can start the install process and this is gonna be pretty simple.
First thing's first, we're gonna use these three metal clips here, these are going to
install with the factory five and a half millimeter screws to the upper portion of the wheel arch
here.
So what we're going to do is basically go like this, that's going to install right at
the top and then another one about there and another one right about there.
Now one thing to note, these brackets are slotted, so if you need some adjustment they
come up, they come down, we're gonna tighten these down for now.
If you do need some adjustment, you can come back and loosen these up, adjust as needed,
and then tighten back down later on.
So we're gonna come back to those clips in just a second.
For now, we're just gonna lift up our fender flare and reinstall our factory hardware.
We're gonna use the two seven millimeters at the front of the wheel arch.
Now we're gonna mount up the two factory positions at the rear of the front flare.
One thing to note about this is the threaded portion for these is on this basic piece of
liner here and it can be tough to get those started but once you do this rear part will
be secure.
So now we just have to take care of mounting the fender flare up to those mounting brackets
and that is gonna be really, really easy, we're just gonna take a Phillips head screwdriver
and the black screws included in the kit and they just thread right in.
Now that's gonna be it for the front fender flare.
To wrap that up though, make sure you pull that wiring nice and tight, route that as
needed, and if you need to make any adjustments to those mounting brackets, you can do so
right now.
Next up, we're going to start on the rear and to begin with you're gonna hold up the
fender flare and measure where you're going to put these clips in according to where the
holes are drilled on the fender flare.
Now we've already done that off-camera, I'm just gonna put these clips right on to our
fender.
Your truck might be a little bit different on where this lines up but where I'm gonna
lay these out is gonna be approximate for all F-150s.
So now we have all of those clips laid out, we're just going to come in with our fender
flare and attach that using four Phillips head screws all included in the kit.
Now the last thing we're going to need to do is at the rear part of the rear flare,
we're going to have to insert this push pin which does come included with the kit.
But that's gonna do it for my review and install of the Proven Ground Raptor Style Fender Flares,
fitting all '15, '16 and '17 F-150s excluding the Raptor Models.
As always, guys, thank you so much for watching.
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