m R g S r

So I decided to go a different route than the ASM style stuff I purchased. I really want some concave nt03m enkei wheels, and they only concave in 18x9.5 and wider, with offsets of +40 and lower.
The ASM style stuff would not fit those with any decent amount of tire, so I decided to flare my OEM metal fenders.

Also, I would like to be able to rotate the tires on the car, so I am planning on running non staggered wheels, with 255's all around. The car should feel nice and planted with this setup as well.


To get started I only used a few simple tools.
A flat head screw driver
A Regular metal hammer
A pair of needle nose pliers
An orbital palm sander
A dremel with cutoff wheel

The dremel and the palm sander:


The bodywork part only requires some filler (I prefer Z grip...it's good stuff), something to spread the filler (there are special flat plastic spatulas for this, they're dirt cheap) and a piece of cardboard to mix the filler on. (Shoe box is perfect)


Here are a few shots with the stock unpulled fender (although it is slightly pulled from the tire rubbing against it lol)
The wheel is an 18x9.5 +45 and the tire is a 235/40/18 azenis
Not much clearance at all here and it will deff. ruin the fender if you hit a bump while the wheel is turned...




you can see how much the wheel sticks out here, and with a wide tire such as a 255/265 it would be sitting on the fender.










To start I popped out all the plastic connectors holding on the fender liner. Then I used the dremel with the cutoff wheel to trim the fender liner. There is no point in flaring the fenders and keeping the fender liner intact, because it will not be able to clip back up when you're done flaring the fenders, therefor it will hang and rub the tires making a ton of noise. I only trimmed a small amount off the fender liner, as seen in this pic:


After this was done I got to poundin with the hammer. From the center of the wheel arch in the fender, I started hitting the lip from the inside out. Not too much in one area at the same time. Working slowly and evenly across the arch, but not all the way to the front or all the way to the back. I wanted to leave somewhat of a flat area on the fender so it looks like it transitions smoothly.

After pounding for a little while, I broke out the needle nose pliers. Very carefully I began bending the fender lip outward. Moving the pliers left or right about 2mm at a time, and I was careful not to pull up on the pliers too hard at once. Doing so will cause the metal to deform and it will be uneven, and it also may cause dents on the top part of the fender. The key is to work slowly and evenly, little by little. Patience is key here.

This is after the initial pounding and pulling with the pliers...

You can see only a little bit was done.

Another shot:

You can see I was following the original arch line of the fender with the pressure point for the pliers. this will help keep an even flare when you pull the metal outward.

Another shot of the original flare: it's not a lot, and it looks uneven now, but this was just the beginning

but you can see the amount of clearance it has already added....

I forget when I took this pic, but I'm pretty sure this is after another round of pulling out gently and evenly with the pliers..



I got some more done but I don't feel like editing the pics now, I'm taking a break for a min lol

More to come......

m R g S r

So this is with a little more pulling of the fender, and I began to remove the paint.
120 grit on the orbital sander removes paint pretty quickly, and it makes a damn mess. Dust everywhere. So you should wear a mask unless you want to be blowing out paint boogers the rest of the day lol







And this is with the tire turned all the way, still plenty of room for it to move. no more chewed up fenders



A shot showing the amount it has been pulled:

m R g S r

Okay so that is about the final amount of pulling I did. I then began to mix the Z grip filler. it's simply to mix the hardener and the puddy, but you have to work fairly quickly because it does dry and start to ball up pretty quickly. I mean, when you are spreading it, if it begins to dry enough, it will ball up the way dry dough does.

So here is the first coat I just slapped on pretty heavy to fill the large dip in the fender.






After this you have to sand the filler down to get rid of the high spots, and expose the low spots. You can do this by hand or use the orbital to remove material pretty quickly.

It's starting to take shape yayy!



Side shot...it's not perfectly even yet. But this is the time consuming part, of putting on the filler, sanding down repeat until it is perfect.

RL1924

I must say these projects scare the shit out of me lol. Im sure it will come out great, But I just couldnt have the balls to start it. Good luck with it

m R g S r

it's alright man i have 4 fenders now lol but the first one i worked on today is turning out okay, a few more hours on it and it should be lookin pretty damn good. i'm happy with the progress so far.

m R g S r

Threw some more filler on there, slowly building up a nice shape to the fender:



hit it with the sander again:


now you can only use the orbital sander up until a certain point. theres no set point, but when it starts taking off too much material and in the wrong areas, you need to swtich to hand sanding with paper and a sanding block or just paper by itself.

This is where I ended up today...it's not done, but it looks 100x better than when I first started!

and you can see the transition area i was talking about leaving before

RL1924

Lot of progress... there comming out great

josserman

wow dude I have to see this nice job so far!

m R g S r

Thanks guys! Swing by whenever u want just give me a call. It's the same thing any body shop would do, it costs so much because it's all labor :/

gotOaks

wow. thanks for posting. This is crazy. I always wondered how it was done. good job bro. I would be too scared to do something like this.