Quik-Latch Mini Latch Assembly 1" Diameter QL-25 Series Black

We're going to show you a fix for this common bumper issue found on the 2015 through 2017 Mustang.

If you've been on the S550 Mustang long enough, you have seen this bumper issue happen at some point in time. And what happens, you take your bumper off a lot when you're working on your car, whether it be a splitter, inner cool or headlights, whatever, install new grills. These clips are very fragile. Once these clips break, you're not going to get the bumper back on properly. I've seen people try to glue them. Nothing is going to work. So basically, you got a couple options at that point. Option one is replace your bumper. Whole new bumper, paint and everything is going to run you over a thousand dollars probably to fix it. Option two is these quick latches and today we're going to show you how to install them.

These quick latch kits are made here in the USA and include two of these mini one inch latches. The way these are going to work, is basically this pin will go behind the bumper and this will go on the outside. Kind of gives it more of a race kind of look to me, I don't think they look bad on the car at all. They're going to be available in your choice of either a black or a polished finish.

For this installation, you need a 1/4 inch ratchet, 7/16 socket, 8 millimeter socket, 7/8 socket, 7 millimeter wrench, 7/16 wrench, small flathead screwdriver, drill, 3/4 inch step drill bit, pilot bit and safety glasses.

Now we have our 2015 GT up on the lift with the wheel off. I can tell you taking the wheel off will make it a lot easier. It is not necessary to do so though. You can actually turn the wheel. There is enough room to work but definitely for us to show you how to do the process, we're going to remove as much as possible make it easier to see. So with the wheel off, first thing we're going to do is go here in the splash shield and remove some of these clips.

Now even if your bumper is still somewhat attached, there's that little 7 millimeter screw you have to remove right up here to separate it. It'll pull apart as you can see. Ours is pretty much completely broken off. You're going to need to pull the bumper away and hold it for now so we can do some work behind there. Now if you want to remove some of the screws up top here, give you a little more flex, you can. There's plenty of flex in the bumper. What I usually do is get an old towel, just fold it up, stick it up there between the headlight and the bumper. That'll hold that enough, that we can work behind there.

Now this is a factory bracket that holds that clip on. I have seen some installs a lot of have removed this. It's actually best to keep this. it acts as additional support for our quick latch. What we're going to do now so we can modify this, is remove these two 8 millimeter screws and take it off the car.

The bracket out of the way, you can see this little square hole here. It's almost like Ford built this for us because this is exactly where the pin for the quick latch is going to go. So there's no drilling necessary, we're going to put the pin there and start the adjustment process. Put a nut and a washer on one side. Put it through that opening. Put a nut and washer on the other side.

What I like to do there, is basically just center it between those two clips. And to get the quick latch installed properly, we're going to have to make several different sets of adjustments. The first thing we do is a preliminary adjustment here is to get it that's it's touching, just barely touching the back of the bumper when the bumper is seated where we want it. What I'm going to do now, put the bumper back into place, as best you can anyway. You basically want it to be touching the latch and my guess was actually pretty close. We're going to bump that out just a hair.

All right, so now that we have the depth of our stud approximately where we want it, again there's going to be room for adjustment later. You want to make sure it's lined up somewhat properly. Here what you'll want to do is get the bumper where you want it. Now I don't suggest having it touching the fender because it's still going to move. So give yourself again a small gap like the factory would. Now what we're going to do, when we have that right, is push it in as hard as possible. It's going to create a little dimple on the outside of the bumper. That's where we're going to drill our hole.

So what we're going to do now, I'm going to start with the pilot bit and kind of work my way up. Then we're going to use a step bit to get to our 3/4 inch hole. I'm going to start basically the small pilot right in the center. At this point, we're going to err on the side of caution and get it put right back where you want it and you should see it right in the middle there poking through. Open it up a little bit more.

Don't know if you can see that on camera, but if you look you can see right in the center of where our hole is, we can see our stud. Now since we're going with a much bigger hole, going to put some tape over this here. Okay with our hole drilled, we're going to pull our tape off. Install our quick latch, should be a pretty tight fit, it'll pop into place. Then install a retaining nut on the back. Grab a socket and just tighten it by hand.

Okay now we can check our fitment. Okay now it locked into place here. Now it is a little further in than I had wanted. Again we will make further adjustments later. Now we know it works, we can modify the factory bracket and then make final adjustments.

We want to install its original brackets. It does provide some support to the bumper, make it line up a lot nicer. All we have to do is make sure you maintain these two openings with these two holes because this is what bolts it on. But the center section is going to have to be basically cut out to clear our stud. So what you're just doing, just clip this off the back and use this step drill to go through the middle or a grinder, whatever you want and open it up.

Once you have that drilled out, you want to make sure when you put it back into place here that you can get a socket on the nut for the stud. If you can, reinstall the original hardware and bolt it back on.

All right, now with that piece on, again if you have anything remaining of your original piece you're going to use it for alignment. It should pop in, lock in just like that. Double check that you have all your measurements right and make sure this is tucked exactly where you want it to be. Ours is actually nice and straight, it came out perfect. What you want to do here, we are going to to back and we're going to put some Loctite on everything to make sure it doesn't move. Before you do that, repeat the process on the other side, just to make sure the bumper movement is exactly where you want it and then we'll go back and Loctite everything.

Okay, now again we're ready to go back through to get the other side finished. Put thread lock on all our bolts. Again here you will lose the adjustment that you made. Suggest doing this basically do the thread lock on one side at time. While before it dries make sure you have your adjustments where you want it. Put your splash shield back together and your installation is finished.

The quick latch bumper repair kit now has the bumper mounted firmly on the side of our S550 Mustang. Personally I actually think they look pretty cool. But there also subtle enough, if you're not a big fan of the look, it's still a lot better than buying a whole new bumper. As far as the installation goes, I would give yourself about an hour per side, be back on the road in no time.

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