Rear Fender Trim, NON cut and fold method

I posted this in my chapter forum and wanted to post it up here as well for others to see.


So, right before I left Germany I cut the front fenders to clear my tires, and really like not having to worry about ripping them off when wheeling, and I liked the way it looked.

I knew I would do the rear eventually, but it would have to wait until after the move and we got settled. Fast forward a few months, and I was tired of driving around with rear fender flares, and nothing on the front. Looked kind of silly to me.

I was not excited about doing the 'cut and fold' method since it rarely looks good, and you dont really gain that much clearance.

While I was at the 2009 Cherokee Crawl, I saw what I wanted to do. It was on Jaun's awesome burgundy colored XJ from Florida. I dont have a picture of it, (perhaps someone else does), but he did a nice job of truly trimming his rear fenders. Of course, he was stuffing 38 inche tires, and had much more need for it than I currently do, but I am planning for the future. This way netted be a full 3 inches all the way around the opening.

When you trim this much, obviously you have to go back in a weld in new inner fender material to re-connect it to the outer body. At this stage, all I did was cut the line I wanted, and get everything smoothed and ready for the rest of the work. My pops owns a Hot Rod Fabrication shop, and I will be at his place next week for a few days, so I am saving the welding, grinding and finishing for when I am there incase I need his professional help.

Anyway, I will update when its finished. Here is the progress after a little cutoff wheel love.

Look way better in my opinion already. Luckily I have an underbody/bedliner type coating on the Jeep, so it will be easier to touch up when we are finished.

~James

Couple more pics after I got it back together.







Makes the 33's look pretty darn small.

Just an update to my fender trimming. Got everything finished while at my fathers shop. I am very pleased with how it turned out, and should have plenty of clearance for any tire I decide to run.

~James

First up was to cut some sheet metal strips to replace what I cut out. I used a cutoff wheel to zip out two panels about 5 inches wide, and roughly 5 feet long. I used something slightly thick than the stock sheetmetal, not sure what gauge it was.



Here is the gap we have to fill.





First step, just get her in place and put a few tacks on it.







Lots more tacks. I ended up putting a tack every 1/4" around the whole outside. I put a 1inch weld every 4 inches or so on the inside.





After the bulk of the tacking, I trimmed the excess sheet metal from the outside, until it was basically flush with the body.

Here you can see the Automotive Seam Sealer we used on the inside of the panel. Its used on many panels by various manufatcurers and does a perfect job of sealing up the panel so no water or dirt can get in.














I was unaware, but my passenger side had some body work from a previous owner. It had a thin layer of body filler along where I cut for the fender, so I use more filler to make it all smooth again. I was just going to leave it, but my father is a perfectionist and insisted we do it 'right' so I let him do the body work after I got everything welded and ground down.




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So here she is. Finished and with a fresh coat or two of matching rubberized paint. Overall it was an easy job, It took about 3 hours per side. The finish looks WAY better than any cut and fold fenders I have seen

Looks great just one thing that I would add. I was BSing with my mechanic and he gave me a sweet little tip. To help maintain a little lip he would use brakeline to have a little flare on the lip of the fender it helped cover some stuff and gave it a clean look. If you aren't getting what i'm talking about I'll try to get a pic or 2 when I go to sell him some parts. All in all 10 outta 10

that is awesome.
if i ever go larger than 33's I will be doing something similar.

thanks for sharing.

krelja said:

Looks great just one thing that I would add. I was BSing with my mechanic and he gave me a sweet little tip. To help maintain a little lip he would use brakeline to have a little flare on the lip of the fender it helped cover some stuff and gave it a clean look. If you aren't getting what i'm talking about I'll try to get a pic or 2 when I go to sell him some parts. All in all 10 outta 10

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I do know what you are talking about, pops has done some similar stuff plenty of times. He mentioned something like that, but I would have had to do it to the front as well since my OCD wouldnt let me do it on just the rear....Lol.

I honestly just wanted the fender/body welded back together and sealed up to look and work halfway decent. I think it turned out like I wanted.

Thanks for the comments!

~James

Thats a really clean job! Unfortunately it will be tough to replicate for anyone wanting to maintain their factory paint job.... then again if I get rear quarter panel gaurds it would cover it up rather nicely.

WOW. This is exactly what I've been wanting to do...

Now that I see it, I'm glad I didn't. That would make my little 32's look TOTALLY unproportional. Looks like a nice set of 35's would stuff real well though

Looks great!

looks great! another job well done that makes me really want to go out and buy a welder. not having real fab tools is no fun. . :wierd:

Cool man thats nice and clean, wouldnt be legal around here but for the trail its good.

Thats really nice. Good job.

You could always rivet some tj flares on the door and rear quarter, but I think that would take away from the cleanliness...

Nice job! Thats on my list to do, but I am still debating on doing some tube fenders while I am at it.

Yeah, I want to add some tube fenders at some point, just figuring out how to tie it all together with the cage, sliders, bumpers etc.

Thanks!!

~James

Dang that looks really good. Thanks for the writeup

That looks good. Great job.

Nice work man!! going to be trimming mine soon but going to do the tuck and fold method since I dont have a welder nor the skill to do that.

stumpXJ said:

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I'm surprised, your OCD dad let you get away with that seam seal job ! LOL

JK. I like your mod.