HOOD STRUTS

has amyone here that has put in the hood struts tapped the hole on the fender? I was reading on chargerforums and lxforums and it looks like half the people tapped the hole and half didn't. any comments?

shouldnt have to... just a pair of pliers to turn it in...

i was going to use a deep socket and get it nice and straight by hand and then give it a little extra turn at the end with a ratchet or wrench. any ideas on how to paint the giant washer that is on the ball stud? touch up paint maybe?

I left mine as is it was flat black anyway

If you are talking about the Mopar kit, the bolts that are provided are self-tapping. Just screw them down until the washer is flush with the fender. Don't go too far though or you could strip the fender hole. I used a 13mm deep socket and it was easy. One other thing that I learned....snap in the fender-end of the struts first. Make sure that the strut connector is centered over the "ball" when you snap the strut on. If you try to force the connection at an angle, you could crack the plastic casing that surrounds the strut connector. If you have the strut and the ball centered correctly, they snap together easily by hand. If you can't complete the connection by hand, then you are not oriented correctly. Once the struts are connected to the fender, just rotate/twist the hood-ends to the correct orientation (centered over the ball) and snap them in. You can do all this yourself but it helps to have a second set of hands to move the hood up or down the few millimeters or so while you are aligning the hood connections.