Rear fender trim with lots of pictures

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LandCruisinMy93

LandCruisinMy93

10 Year
Joined
Apr 4, 2013
Threads
48
Messages
2,688
Location
Springfield, OR
Got a shrinker/stretcher set from HF and ordered the 20 gauge metal to make new rear fender lips so I can lengthen the rear 3" to be able to stuff my 40" toyos without any rub. It's been a lot of cutting, grinding, adjusting and welding. But the driver side is nearly done and the passenger side has got the preliminary cuts made. So here are some pictures to show what's going on.

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A lot more pics to come, above is the fender cleaned and prepped, my initial line for cutting marked on , the new lip to be welded on used to show why I decided to cut where I did, and the last is of a spot weld cut using a spot weld cutter, there were several that had to be removed to cut away only the outer skin. I hammered out all the underside sheet metal until it was even with my final cut line and used my little comma shaped dolly and hammer to make a flange down the length of the underside sheet metal so that I could spot weld it to the new arch to help seal it up again.

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You can see in the above photo set how there was more metal trimmed away, I did the trimming in stages as necessary to line everything up properly . The outer sheet metal grew farther and farther away from the original wheel well. There was a lot of hammer and Dollie work done to flatten it out and move it up to the level of the cut, you can see how I made the flange in the last pic.

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I used butt welding clamps to align the metal while I made small tack welds. I made A Lot of tack welds to try and keep the heat down.. Admittedly I made a few too many in a row trying to hurry the project along... A little warpage occurred on the upper fender area, I was able to knock it almost completely out with a dolly and a lot of little hits. Once it was welded completely in I drilled holes about every 2 inches and rosette welded them in to form spot welds to the inner flange. Worked great. In the bottom two images I have knocked down the bulk of the welds on the driver side and started cutting the passenger side. I know it seems weird to start the other side when the first isn't finished, but my body saw is electric and doesn't make a lot of noise but my air compressor and die grinder make a bunch and it was getting to late to be so loud. I will finish grinding down the welds and put a skim layer of body filler over all of it and sand it out before etch priming etc... Final product will be Monstalined around under the flare and in a few other areas. The rear flares will be chopped and stretched, but that will have to wait until I'm done with this project.

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jcardona1 said:
I just finished one side today. Need to start on passenger side soon

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Seam sealer applied

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Looks good man, I was trying to keep it looking as factory as possible, that's why I went through all the trouble of making new arches. I will ultimately retain my flares and mud flaps too. Where did you purchase seam sealer? I was hoping to replicate the band of seam sealer toyota used on the bottom of the arches to cover the spot welds and inside the lip to seal it up nice and tight.
 
Damn fine work! I'm chicken to do this but wanna move the axle back as far as possible while remaining sorta stock in appearance. Looks like you nailed it
 
But you'll destroy the resale value!!!

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Wow. Need pics of those 40's stuffing your new wheelwells.
 
LandCruisinMy93 said:
Looks good man, I was trying to keep it looking as factory as possible, that's why I went through all the trouble of making new arches. I will ultimately retain my flares and mud flaps too. Where did you purchase seam sealer? I was hoping to replicate the band of seam sealer toyota used on the bottom of the arches to cover the spot welds and inside the lip to seal it up nice and tight.
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Thanks! Yours is much prettier though :) Since my truck is pretty low I completely eliminated any sort of lip. The inner fender is flush with the outer fender now.

The seam sealer I used is the Eastwood brushable seam sealer. Good stuff! I bought it directly from Eastwood on eBay, $33 shipped for a can http://www.ebay.com/itm/Eastwood-Br...1323282538&pt=Motors_Automotive_Tools&vxp=mtr
 
LandCruisinMy93 said:
I used butt welding clamps to align the metal in while I made small tack welds. I made A Lot of tack welds to try and keep the heat down.. Admittedly I made a few too many in a row trying to hurry the project along... A little warpage occurred on the upper fender area, I was able to knock it almost completely out with a dolly and a lot of little hits. Once it was welded completely in I drilled holes about every 2 inches and rosette welded them in to form spot welds to the inner flange. Worked great. In the bottom two images I have knocked down the bulk of the welds on the driver side and started cutting the passenger side. I know it seems weird to start the other side when the first isn't finished, but my body saw is electric and doesn't make a lot of noise but my air compressor and die grinder make a bunch and it was getting to late to be so loud. I will finish grinding down the welds and put a skim layer of body filler over all of it and sand it out before etch priming etc... Final product will be Monstalined around under the flare and in a few other areas. The rear flares will be chopped and stretched, but that will have to wait until I'm done with this project.
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Nice bro :beer:
 
Well, today was an interesting day. I learned a Lot about the tiny differences in construction between the passenger side and the driver side rear wheel wells, I also learned that my passenger side arch apparently had an 1/8 in extra material in the worst possible place, this led to my having to cut my piece in 2. Oh, but it didn't stop there, apparently the piece was under tension right about where I cut it in half. So once it was cut it moved all kinds of different directions. So I spent several hours trying to correct it and weld it back together to no avail. Instead I made a completely new upper section and that's where I'm at for the day, other than figuring out how I was going to work around the little aforementioned differences. So here are the pics for the day. Hopefully it will be welded up tomorrow. So the first pic is of the quarter trimmed for the arch that ended up not fitting properly, the second is of the inside of the cruiser taken from the outside of the cruiser, The last is of the driver side with the flare put in place to show how much was removed.

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Booger weldz said:
Damn fine work! I'm chicken to do this but wanna move the axle back as far as possible while remaining sorta stock in appearance. Looks like you nailed it
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I appreciate it man, it's been a lot of work so far, but it always is when you try and do things all fancy and complicate. I'm hoping the final product is as good as I imagined it. I've never done anything like this before so I was really nervous diving into it. My axle is actually back about 2 inches total and is part of the reason for trimming. It's really not as bad as you think it is, so far the passenger side is the harder of the two. I will post more pics tomorrow, hopefully all goes well.
 
Delancy said:
Ya know, he's actually said that...
:rolleyes:
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I'm not too worried about resale value, I'm pretty sure I can get what I would be asking for it around here with all the attention it gets. I occasionally get people asking if I would sell it, or giving me their number and telling me to call if I want to sell it lol. Not a common vehicle around here, especially as big as it is.

Ton504. I'm running 40x13.50x17 toyo open country MT on Pro comp 17x9 rock crushers with 2.25 BS

UnderDawg thanks for kind words man.
 
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