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Tube flare write up.

Captain Ruggy

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Pennsylvania
Finished my tube flares.

I finally finished my tube flares and got them all bedlined. Her's a few pics of the finished product. I think the black bedliner ties in well with the rest of the jeep. What do you think?

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Re: Finished my tube flares.

I actually used pipe for the tube. and it was 3/4 ID. It was a little over an inch OD. Worked perfect and didn't kink too easily when bending it. The sheet was 16 gauge. They are strong enough to stand on, and if I ever need to, I can take them back off.
 
Ok, this will be somewhat of a write up on my flares.

It all started about a month or so ago. I got pulled over for the tires sticking out too far. I drove it this way for 2 years! I guess I just got pulled over on a bad day. He gave me 30 days to get them covered. I already have four rear tj flares I was going to put on it, but I thought I would try to build my own. If it didn't work out, I could always throw the tj flares on.

A couple things I wanted. First, I wanted them to be affordable. I didn't want to buy those qtr. panel guards and build off of them. Second, I wanted them to be able to be easily removeable, as in bolt on. And most of all, I wanted them to be strong.

So I borrowed a pipe bender from a friend, and went looking for tube. I ended up using 3/4 inch ID pipe from Lowes. I bought 2 ten foot long pieces and had them cut them down into five foot long pieces. The cost was right around 20 bucks.

Then I took them home and tried my hand at bending them. This was a lot of trial and error and lots of running back and forth to the jeep to hold them up to it.
tubeflares1.jpg


I bought some flat steel to use to make tabs with. I cut the tubes to the lengths I wanted, then I made tabs and welded them to the ends of the tube, so I could bolt it to the jeep.
tubeflares2.jpg


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Once it was bolted to the jeep, I made a cardboard template for the sheet metal. I used 16 gauge, so it would be strong, and I wouldn't burn throught it too easily when I welded it. Then I welded the sheetmetal to the tube.
tubeflares3.jpg


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Once that was done, I made 3 tabs from flat steel and bent them at a 90. I welded these to the sheetmetal against the fender. The flare is held to the fender with 5 bolts.
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I then made some reinforcments to the flare to make it strong. I used 1/8 inch thick flat steel and bent it however I need it to. I put one at the front tab, one at the rear tab and one at the middle tab on the front flares.

Front.
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Middle.
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Rear.
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To be continued.
 
Definitely a cool cheap fix for "streetin" your offroad rig.
 
Front and middle driver's side.
tubeflares005Small.jpg



Middle and rear driver's side.
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The rear ones mount a little different. I couldn't make the tabs like I did on the fronts because their isn't enough room on the Qtr panel. I made the front and rear tabs like the front flares, but I made the middle 3 stick straight out.
tubeflares13.jpg


Then I made slots that the tabs slide into. I had to remove the interior panels in the back to get at the backside of the qtr. panel. I bolted the middle and front tabs through the wheel well. If you look at this picture you can see the 2 tabs bolted in the wheel well. The rear most tab couldn't be bolted in because it is too high up off of the wheel well. So I simply bolted a piece of angle to it, against the inside of the qtr. panel.
tubeflares011Small.jpg


For all the bolts going through I made small plates out of steel to help prevent the bolts from ever pulling through.
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For the rear tab I made this bracket iside the qtr panel to help spread the load. This is the inside of the picture shown above.
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The bolt for the front tab had to go through the vent in the door jamb.
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This is where we stood at this point.
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thanks for the pics! i thought i had seen your jeep on here before. some of the pictures i recognize, while others look new. great job. and i love the look. didnt you have your son standing on them at one point?

subscribed.... this one is on my ever growing list of "crap i want to, but will probably never do". haha, i work at home depot (used to work at a lowes, ha! whats stocked is essentially the same at both places), so who knows. i walk by the little bit of metal we do stock, and think every day of what i could make. but making bends is the problem area for me.
 
So I think they are strong enough. This is my 14 year old son standing on them. I also stood on them, but I have no pics of that.
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Then I used automotive seam sealer and ran a bead of that on the inside where the flare meets the jeep. I left this dry for a day then prepped the flares, fenders and qtr panels for bedliner. I wasn't sure if I was going to bedline the front fender like I did or not, but now that it is done, I like it.

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All in all, they weren't that hard to make, but were sometimes a pain in the butt. Lots of grinding. Lot's of patience. But worth it in the end.

The tools I used were a cut off saw, grinder, welder, and a jigsaw to cut the sheetmetal. Plus all the misc. stuff of course.

For materials I used 20 feet of 3/4 ID pipe from lowes. I got four pieces of 16 gauge sheet. 5 inches by 4 foot long. And I got some angle, and some flat stock for making the tabs and brackets.

The pipe cost me 20 bucks, the sheet was also 20, and other metal I used totalled up to around 25 bucks or so. I bought all the bolts from the local hardwars store, I used grade 5. I think I spent around 7 bucks or so for those. Plus the 43 dollars for the bedliner. I have a little over a hundred dollars into them. I guess a little more if you would count the consumables, like welding wire, grinding wheels, jigsaw blades, etc.

This was only my second fab project. My first was my tube doors. I would encourage anyone to go and give it a try. There is nothing like the satisfaction of building something for yourself. I hope this was somewhat informative. And thanks for reading along. Good Luck.
 
kudos bro, especially for your "second project". this goes to show what a bit of vision and persistance can land you. they look much better than anything ive seen (aside from hannemans. haha).

but like i said, im a fan. did you trim the fenders before this was done? what method did you use for the rear? and how did you clean up the front wheel well? pics?
 
I did the standard cut and fold in the rear. In the front, I traced around the stock flare, took the flare off, and cut to the line. It gave my plenty of clearance for the 35's.
 
Re: Finished my tube flares.

I LIKE!!
When do you go into production?
 
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