high clearance fenders

[fj-rankenstein]

I was going through my pics a short while ago and came across something I did some time ago...i still had all the pics together so it made it easy to do..

not too hardcore but kind of a fun day project.. the 38.5 boggers kept eating my stock fenders so something had to be done...

the fenders sit up high at the bottom but if you are cutting your rockers up you can make the body lines meet very well..

step 1.
-get a set of good fj40 fenders... (sometimes harder than expected. I didnt use the ones on rank..)


step 2.

-if they are on the truck remove them because there is going to be a whole lot of cutting to them happening...
-cut the inner skirt of the fender off. cut along the inside fender line where the top of the fender is spot welded to the inner skirt.


step3.

cut the fender support off because it wont work now with the fender in its soon to be new postion...


step 4.

you will have to remove your side apron from the cruiser as well... there are a couple 10mm head bolts that attatch it to your front bib.. you might have taken it off with the fender as well when you were removing that... anyways, seperate it from the fender if it is still attached and this is where the planning begins..

with a pencil, mark out a continuing line on the back of the skirt where it will meet with a horizontal line along top of the skirt.guestimate the curve the the fender makes and draw that in as well... i will post a pic because I cant make this any clearer right now...


-I basically wanted to make the fender as high up as possible but i thought it looked funny if it was even with the bottom of the hood so i made my horizontal cut a half inch from the top of the side skirt..


step 5.

-you are going to have to reattatch the side skirt to the front bonnet and now make a bracket to hold the back of the side skirt to the cowl..i made it out of 1/2 inch flat stock and I drilled two holes in it and then into the cowl... the skirt side got welded on but you can bolt that on too if you want...


step 6.

-you are going to have to now moch up your fender onto the bonnet...you will be able to bend the side skirt inwards now and allow the fender to sit being partially pushed into the engine compartment...from here you can adjust how the fender will sit and how much extra you need it to stick out... I believe I was able to gain two extra inches of width to cover p my wide tires this way....
-from here, you tack your fender to your side skirt....

step 7.

from here you take the inner fender that you cut off earlier and you can start tacking it to the bottom of the side skirt.. in a sense, it is actually staying the same height as the old fenders and its the fender itself you are raising if this makes any sense.... you might need to rework the fender slightly around the front bottom corner of the bib but it should all line up really well...
as well, on the front of the cowl, where it angles upwards, about half way up, there are two holes that will have to be drilled into your newly placed fenders so you can bolt the fender to the cowl.... this will give three places that the new fenders bolt on..( from the side skirt to the front bib, from the top of the side skirt to the top of the cowl and from the back middle of the fender to the cowl...)

here is another pic to show what is happening with the fender placement..




step 8.

once everything is tacked and wont fall apart for the time being you have to bob the front of the fenders... you dont have to but i found it looked like a set of fangs hanging out there so i bobbed them back to a length that I though stuck out as close to stock as possible...



from here weld everything up but dont go crazy or else you might get a lot of warping...i welded mine up on the truck and found it helped quite a bit..

step 9.

once you are happy with everything, do the body work.... my fenders were awfully rough and i didnt have any kind of body filler at the time so i just primed and painted...
- attatch your light and now you have some high clearance fenders that not even 40 inch tires should be able to touch...

[rabid]

Nice writeup! thanks!

[incogrhino]

What are you doin about the spring hooks that hold the hood down?Looks good.

[71-CRUISER]

I just rotated the hooks forward and drilled a hole in the ft corner of the fender skirt.

[BooKilla]

that 45 is pure sex

[incogrhino]

Originally Posted by 71-CRUISER

I just rotated the hooks forward and drilled a hole in the ft corner of the fender skirt.

Ah, gotcha.Works for me.