Fitting Front Flaps To Rav4 With Premium Steps

[Hoovie]

Instead of yet another oil thread or engine thread, I thought it was time to have yet another Front Mud Flap thread, but this time with some pics of them installed :)

To Recap the issue:

Toyotas MudFlaps are not compatible with the 'Premium' Side Steps i.e. the ones with the rubber studs dotted around them. This is because the front of the stud extends past the front wheel arch so fowls the lower part of the flap.....

This issue would be the same if the car was fitted with the Wheel Arch Extensions (aka Overfenders) such as the T180 model or the SR models, or without such as the XT models.

There are a few threads mentioning about all you need to do is trim to fit, but I thought it might be useful to show a few pictures of what one version of the cut would look like

The actual flaps would be slightly different depending on if your car had the arch extensions or not so the trimming would therefore be a little different. These photos are for the arch extension version.

So firstly the modified flaps from the front....

The view from the wheelarch angle...

Left Side

Right Side

I made the cuts to allow the flaps to be fitted following the usual 'flowline' e.g. going 'through' the step. It would be also possible to do the cuts so the lower part gets pushed forward, which would involve less cutting, and probably look reasonable.

Here are the cuts I made....

Left Flap

Right Flap

I did the left one first as I would see it less in case it went pear-shaped :D and then moving to the right, I slightly modified the trimming and left more plastic as can be seen. That actually just gets pushed into the inside of the end cap of the step and Ieft in place so there was more flap left and no other reason

I hope this is of some help to others in the same situation.

If anyone would like to to have Mudflaps on their RAV4 which is fitted with the Arch Extensions and the Premium Steps, but either does not have the suitable tools (e.g. Dremel like tool) or is not confident to made the cuts, drop me a PM

Hoovie the Borders Flap Butcher :)

[firemac]

Hi Hoovie,

Very timely as I've just fitted a full set of Mr. T's mudflaps to my 3-door which also has Mr. T's OEM steps. Took half-an-hour to fit all four; no fouling, no hassle.

Can't beat a 4.2........

Jim