Front tires rubbing the lower front flares/well!

Hello all, I have a 90 Cherokee with a 3" lift, new rear leaf spring packs, new shocks all the way around, New front springs with 3/4 spacers. 31x10.50 Bridgestone AT KO tires. 8x15 wheels. Pretty standard lift if you ask me. The inside of the front tires (When flexed) rub the front lower flare and the metal bracket that holds the air dam etc.. With this set up, I shouldn't have much rubbing. I don't mind the rubbing on the plastic flares. When they rub on the metal is when I get PI*#ED! The wheels and tires cost more than the Jeep. I have seen XJ's that have a portion of the front fender/flare removed-cut off. It looks like they take off the front end caps from the bumper and cut straight across towards the tire and remove all that. Is this a big deal? What do y'all suggest? I cant afford to trim the fenders and add larger flares just yet. Thanks again!

you're at the limit of the wheel well at 31", it's just not any bigger than that. You can cut the flare and the wheel well to accommodate 33's at 3" of lift, but you'll still need to bumpstop the axle to keep it out of the upper flare.

This is at 4-and-a-bit inches, but you can see it's opened in the front as you described and in the back as well. Make sure the axle is centered in the wheelwell and cut what you need.

Great pic, thanks man! Do you have any close up shots of the front flare near the bumper? That's what I'm going to do, what did you use to cut the fender?

Do you have to remove the air dam under the front bumper?

What backspacing are you running?Also a 7" rim would work better with that tire size.

-- cut off wheel (pea grinder) used to cut it all in place
-- air dam goes away
-- closer pic before bumpstopped:

Thanks for the pic, wish me luck. I don't recall the backspacing, when I was putting the plan together for the lift, the 4x4 shop said that the backspacing, wheel size etc....was just right for this set up