I needed to remove the left fender to rivit the mudflap to the fender. When the 4 bolts were removed the rubber Wellnuts just fell out inside the plastic frame cover. For those of us that use wellnuts you are supposed to push them in flush to the base surface to secure them. They stay in place when you reassemble. I bought replacement wellnuts (part# 7541923) but to assemble this properly it looks like I will need to enlarge the frame cover holes to install wellnuts. I dislike enlarging factory holes, but don’t see any other way to correct what seems to be a factory error. The service manuel shows the correct location of the wellnuts. Suggestions?
sounds like someone didn’t want to do the work to size the hole properly for the well nuts so they just put them on backwards(wideside down) or worst and mushroomed the bushing side. Was the other fender mounted the same way?
Sounds like an easy fix if the holes are aligned correctly but yes, it’ll take resizing the holes to fit the wellnut bushing diameter.
The new kid wasn’t instructed on how to properly install them that day?
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Nope that’s the way gem does it on some cars. I know it’s pretty ghetto.
On some cars they have a large corse screw and on other they use the well nuts on the back side.
If you enlarge the holes and use the well nuts you notice that your fender wil no longer sit flush. So I would not recommend you enlarging the holes and pushing the Well nuts threw. Run them on the back side like you discover or just use a traditional 1/4-20 truss head bolt and nut.
See- That’s what I was thinking.
Having that big gap between the components will probably not be a very good look.
The well nut on the backside as a fastener probably acts as an expansion cushion, absorbs some flex/vibration and keeps both holes from radial cracking.
Thanks for your input Dougl,Grant and AssyRequired. I like how you think! I suspected that. If I put the well nuts on correctly there would be a small space (thickness of the wellnut collar) between the fender and plastic frame cover. I’ll take pictures when the wellnuts come in. (Happy I don’t have to drill out factory holes) It’s hard to get your fingers behind the frame to hold the wellnut. Gonna scrape some knuckles on this one! AssyRequired do you have smaller fingers than I do?? What a terrible design flaw.
I think on one hand Gem was very smart that they used many of the same parts all over the gem. Example the Well nuts you showed are used in the fenders front and Rear and the Dash, as well as the 1/4-20 Truss head Philips.
It’s like they wanted to use as many of the same parts over and over to cut down on sku#s it makes it easy on all of us.
Using parts that existed like the Tail lights and
The 110v cover and Plug stuff that already existed and didn’t need to be made specifically for the gem, off the shelf parts. Helped us all the down side is perhaps their could have been better parts for the task. But GEM used what ever they had. I’m 100% positive that the same parts that came on the 1999 Gem are on the Last of the classic gems like the 2015
New wellnuts came in $2 apiece. Seems expensive to me but I saw prices as high as $8. Anyway due to Polaris engineering flaw, you can’t mount them properly because then the collar (.19" thick) would separate fender from frame cover .19". Not a good look. I’ve replaced the wellnuts, but if I knew then what I know now, I would have just reuse my old ones and saved a few bucks. I prefer the 2016+ design that no longer uses wellnuts.
These well nuts( 1/4" - 20 ) have only a 0.05" lip so might work better at the fenders. The original has a 0.18" thick lip.
I like it. It would require enlarging the holes in the back plate. If you use them please post a picture of the look
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I was looking for the stock well nuts with the 0.18" thick rubber washer for my dash hold-on bolts.
I had found these and thought they might have enough at the washer end but they clearly do not.
I cut off the lip/washer from the original well nuts and I’m trying some E-6000 adhesive to hold the washer part to these new well nuts.
Same 1/2" diameter hole and 1/4" thread size but now having the 0.2" rubber washer.