[Camarus]

The "SPAT Front Fascia" on my Durango SRT is cracked. (pic 1 below) I ordered a new one from Mopar parts giant and it is the part but I cannot get the old one off. It appears to be anchored by a type of push clip with a plastic round head on a metal pin. (pic 2) The back side of it appears to be a 3 tabbed metal clip that can spin around the metal pin. (pic 3)

Any help on how to get these fasteners out would be appreciated.
Thanks
Russell

 

[EngineerEli]

I see its been a couple of months. Did you ever figure this out?


I actually have new parts coming to replace my SPATs tomorrow, both of them are damaged on my new to me 2019 Durango R/T. Based on what I have found they are plastic pop rivets effectively, plastic fingers with a metal center shaft. I plan to either cut the head off with a razor blade, or try very carefully drilling the heads off. I ordered replacement rivets with my new SPATs.


If I have any success in the coming days I'll try to respond here.
​

 

[EngineerEli]

So I got my SPAT replacments a few days ago and installed them. I was surprised to find the black portion of these is actually some sort of non-metalic metal, I suspect aluminum. The silver portion is steel, basically a pop rivet. I had to use a cut off wheel on a dremel to remove the mangled one. Do be carefull because if you generate too much heat cutting or drilling, it will melt the plastic bumper material... The remainder of the rivets I drilled out with a drill bit one size larger than the pre expanded black portion of the rivet, not the head diamerter. Drill SLOW! If you go too fast, you end up drilling right through the plastic bumper and end up with oversized holes, which may not hold as well as intended. All in all, install went fine. I did find I had to jack up the frame a little bit, not to the point the wheels came off the ground, to fit a drill under the bumper to drill out the rivets, so keep that in mind... Good Luck to all else that do this!

 

[007Durango]

Thank you EE. Mine also failed against a rather tall curb stop, ouch. From what I can gather we'll have to cut off the top off that rivet then push or drill out the rest. I bought the replacement rivets for this but do you think a bolt/washer combo would work in this application? Again thanks for sharing. I was having such a hard time just finding info on this.

 

[EngineerEli]

Thank you EE. Mine also failed against a rather tall curb stop, ouch. From what I can gather we'll have to cut off the top off that rivet then push or drill out the rest. I bought the replacement rivets for this but do you think a bolt/washer combo would work in this application? Again thanks for sharing. I was having such a hard time just finding info on this.

I would be concerned about two things if considering nuts and bolts. First, there is a lot of vibration in that area, maybe if you used a lock washer or nylock nut it could hold. Second, it's a hard area to get to to get a wrench on the nut. I didn't want to remove the whole federally, so I was unable to even retrieve the rest of one or two of the rivets after drilling/cutting off the heads. No way to get them out without a lot of work. That said I'm sure they ended up falling out somewhere after driving for a few days... The rivets are easy, you can do the whole project from the outside of the bumper/fender.