Thanks for the reply, Jim.
After I posted, I went to the garage to give it another try. I finally succeeded. I must have worked on this three hours.
The problem was that when the ends aligned so they could snap together, the end that snaps over the other end was bent out too much to snap over.
ai fnally realized that I might be able to thread the stud in even if the parts were not snapped together. So I pulled the two ends together with a pair of needle-nosed vice-grips adn the put a set of vice grips with curved jaws on the back of the band to hold it close. Then I was able to hold the end aligned and start the stud. after the stud was tight enough, I remove the vice-grips. The ends did lap over each other as they should.
I will say that this was more difficult that installing fenders.
