Cessna, If you have not already done so, in order to reinstall the beads, you will have to loosen the bolts joining the fenders to the shrouds. As you will find out, some of those bolts are next to impossible to access. Just loosen them enough to create a little space to slip the tabs on the back of the beads into place.
Most people seem to prefer installing the beads after the paint job is complete. The risk with that method is scratching the paint with the extremely sharp and sometimes uncooperative metal tabs; definitely not a job to do alone. On the last car that I did, I fitted the beads into place before painting, leaving the beads a bit high so that paint could go into the gap between the fenders and shrouds. Then, after buffing, I pushed the beads down into place, bent the tabs over, and tightened the fasteners. That seemed to work OK - pros and cons.