DIY fender roll. Looks OEM, no harm done.
05-19-2012, 05:32 AM
#1
DIY fender roll. Looks OEM, no harm done.
Well I've taken a 4 day vacation and it looks like I'll be spending it all in the garage. No worries though, as the money I'll save by staying at home will pay for all the toys I bought yesterday as well as the speeding ticket I got coming back from Fry's..
So, to preface all of this, my car is filthy in these pictures. It's been raining the past few weekends here in Austin, and of course washing your car is the "Texas rain dance." So please forgive me.
I also want to say that this was my first fender roll, and I've been on the fence about doing it since I always see pictures of some horribly messed up fenders with wavy lines and jacked up paint. I'm by no means an expert, and I had no idea how this was going to turn out, but I took pictures along the way. I know I'm not re-inventing the wheel here, but I'm pretty cowardly when it comes to things like this and I feel a lot better when I have DIY's to follow with pics. I'm completely open to suggestions, but hopefully someone can benefit from this.
Tools required:
Heat gun or blow dryer. I picked up a 40 dollar heat gun from Fry's.
Fender roller. I borrowed one from a local S owner for 20 bucks.
Box cutter
Sharpie
Dremel
Water (to stay hydrated)
At least an entire free day. 2 days preferred.
Jack stands
A jack
Spare bolts and nuts
A drill and a drill bit
Balls of steel
So my reason for this mod was to keep my tires from being chewed to pieces, as well as the fenders.
As you can see, I'm not "hella flush" or super dropped. I'm lowered (not all the way) on PSS9's at the stiffest setting with 17x9 +45 rims, which isn't eXtReMe compared to what I've seen being done. I love the Direzza Z1's, but every time I run at least 245's in the rear I can hear them rubbing when pulling up on steep parking lot entrances- primarily the one that leads to my apartment. I totally understand the "buy wheels that fit" crowd, and I am cool with people pulling and flaring to accommodate their slammed stance because they like what they like. I think I fall somewhere in between. I just wanted to keep an OEM look that functioned for my current setup. ANYWAY, on with it yes?
The rear fenders.
After putting the car on jack stands and removing the wheels, the first thing I did was remove the rubber guards from the fender (they pull right off) and clean the area I'm working with. I didn't want to try and roll the fender with piles of dirt and rocks stuck in the lip causing damage during the roll, and I also didn't want dirt falling on my face.
You can see in this picture where part of the plastic from the rear bumper has rubbed off after time. I took a piece of painters tape and masked off an area that I felt I needed to cut, and traced a line with a silver sharpie
I then wanted to set a stopping point of where my roll would stop. If you follow along the inside of the fender, toward the front you will notice that there is an area that has an extra sheet of metal. I figured that this would be hard to roll, plus it's so far forward that there wouldn't be a point to rolling beyond this mark.
I marked this area with a sharpie. Take note of the little circles on the fender lip in this picture. The rear fender is 2 pieces of metal stamped together. These stampings (I assume these are marks from stamping) are all along the fender lip, and are more ridged. You have to be super careful rolling along these.
I broke out the heat gun and took aim at the rear bumper to soften the plastic.
**If you use a heat gun, be careful not to get anything too hot, as I hear that the paint will bubble up. The goal temperature that I was using was "slightly too hot to touch."**
I then took a box cutter and veeerrry slowly cut along the sharpie line I made. A slow and long sawing motion worked well.
Now that is out of the way, time to re-locate the bumper tab. I didn't think that I would have to do this, but I actually saw where my tires had already been rubbing the plastic part of the bumper tab, so it needs to be moved. Honda uses a screw (left) that fits into a plastic grommet thing. I wasn't going to mess with trying to pull that out and re-locate it, so I decided to go with a 10mm bolt, washer, and nut(right), primarily because that was the smallest thing I could find laying around.
I felt around to locate a suitable place to drill a hole and marked it with a sharpie. Silver sharpies are awesome.
BE CAREFUL when drilling this hole, because once the bit clears the metal, you don't want it to hit the inside of your fender
like I did.
I should also note, I drilled the hole with the factory screw holding the bumper in place, but looking back I should have lined up the bumper myself since the bumper wasn't lined up 100% from factory to begin with.
After knowing where the new bumper tab mounting point sits, I marked off an area to be cut. BE CAREFUL when pulling the bumper away from the fender like this, because there is a very thin securing... slot.. not too far behind this, and it can easily break as mine did. It's not really a big deal since I don't know how securely it was holding the bumper in place to start with, but just keep that in mind.
After a quick blast from the heat gun, I cutaway the marked area. BE CAREFUL not to let your box cutter hit your fender while making this cut. I put the bumper back in place and traced outline onto the metal tab.
I just stuffed a rag between the bumper and fender so that it was out of the way to do some dremel work. You can see in this picture the broken bumper thing I was talking about.
Cutting along the line I traced.
A few sparks and some noise later, the old tab is pretty much gone. I cleaned this up and rounded it out with a grinding dremel tip so that nothing was sharp.
I also ran the grinding bit along the plastic tab area to make it flush with the metal. I then used 80 grit sandpaper to smooth out the plastic where I had made my first cut with a box cutter.
To prevent rust, I lazily threw some of this on the metal area that I had cut.
Very lazily.
So, the bumper tab is relocated, and now it's finally time to roll. A few pictures showing the paint before the roll. Yes, it's dirty.
Well.. here we go.
At this point I didn't take any pictures, as I was trying to figure out how to use the damn thing. Don't worry, I took pictures of usage on the left fender. It's a bit more confusing than it looks. The fender isn't exactly round, so you cant just set the roller to one position and make it work for the entire area (or at least the area I was working with). After figuring out what knobs did what, I blasted the entire area with the heat gun and did some experimenting and worked SUPER slow. I would recommend doing several dry runs first (as in not actually touching the roller to the fender yet) just to figure out the controls, as you are going to have to make pressure adjustments WHILE you are rolling. I heated the outside of the fender before every adjustment, the lip of the fender, and most importantly the corner of the lip.
So, to preface all of this, my car is filthy in these pictures. It's been raining the past few weekends here in Austin, and of course washing your car is the "Texas rain dance." So please forgive me.
I also want to say that this was my first fender roll, and I've been on the fence about doing it since I always see pictures of some horribly messed up fenders with wavy lines and jacked up paint. I'm by no means an expert, and I had no idea how this was going to turn out, but I took pictures along the way. I know I'm not re-inventing the wheel here, but I'm pretty cowardly when it comes to things like this and I feel a lot better when I have DIY's to follow with pics. I'm completely open to suggestions, but hopefully someone can benefit from this.
Tools required:
Heat gun or blow dryer. I picked up a 40 dollar heat gun from Fry's.
Fender roller. I borrowed one from a local S owner for 20 bucks.
Box cutter
Sharpie
Dremel
Water (to stay hydrated)
At least an entire free day. 2 days preferred.
Jack stands
A jack
Spare bolts and nuts
A drill and a drill bit
Balls of steel
So my reason for this mod was to keep my tires from being chewed to pieces, as well as the fenders.
As you can see, I'm not "hella flush" or super dropped. I'm lowered (not all the way) on PSS9's at the stiffest setting with 17x9 +45 rims, which isn't eXtReMe compared to what I've seen being done. I love the Direzza Z1's, but every time I run at least 245's in the rear I can hear them rubbing when pulling up on steep parking lot entrances- primarily the one that leads to my apartment. I totally understand the "buy wheels that fit" crowd, and I am cool with people pulling and flaring to accommodate their slammed stance because they like what they like. I think I fall somewhere in between. I just wanted to keep an OEM look that functioned for my current setup. ANYWAY, on with it yes?
The rear fenders.
After putting the car on jack stands and removing the wheels, the first thing I did was remove the rubber guards from the fender (they pull right off) and clean the area I'm working with. I didn't want to try and roll the fender with piles of dirt and rocks stuck in the lip causing damage during the roll, and I also didn't want dirt falling on my face.
You can see in this picture where part of the plastic from the rear bumper has rubbed off after time. I took a piece of painters tape and masked off an area that I felt I needed to cut, and traced a line with a silver sharpie
I then wanted to set a stopping point of where my roll would stop. If you follow along the inside of the fender, toward the front you will notice that there is an area that has an extra sheet of metal. I figured that this would be hard to roll, plus it's so far forward that there wouldn't be a point to rolling beyond this mark.
I marked this area with a sharpie. Take note of the little circles on the fender lip in this picture. The rear fender is 2 pieces of metal stamped together. These stampings (I assume these are marks from stamping) are all along the fender lip, and are more ridged. You have to be super careful rolling along these.
I broke out the heat gun and took aim at the rear bumper to soften the plastic.
**If you use a heat gun, be careful not to get anything too hot, as I hear that the paint will bubble up. The goal temperature that I was using was "slightly too hot to touch."**
I then took a box cutter and veeerrry slowly cut along the sharpie line I made. A slow and long sawing motion worked well.
Now that is out of the way, time to re-locate the bumper tab. I didn't think that I would have to do this, but I actually saw where my tires had already been rubbing the plastic part of the bumper tab, so it needs to be moved. Honda uses a screw (left) that fits into a plastic grommet thing. I wasn't going to mess with trying to pull that out and re-locate it, so I decided to go with a 10mm bolt, washer, and nut(right), primarily because that was the smallest thing I could find laying around.
I felt around to locate a suitable place to drill a hole and marked it with a sharpie. Silver sharpies are awesome.
BE CAREFUL when drilling this hole, because once the bit clears the metal, you don't want it to hit the inside of your fender
like I did.
I should also note, I drilled the hole with the factory screw holding the bumper in place, but looking back I should have lined up the bumper myself since the bumper wasn't lined up 100% from factory to begin with.
After knowing where the new bumper tab mounting point sits, I marked off an area to be cut. BE CAREFUL when pulling the bumper away from the fender like this, because there is a very thin securing... slot.. not too far behind this, and it can easily break as mine did. It's not really a big deal since I don't know how securely it was holding the bumper in place to start with, but just keep that in mind.
After a quick blast from the heat gun, I cutaway the marked area. BE CAREFUL not to let your box cutter hit your fender while making this cut. I put the bumper back in place and traced outline onto the metal tab.
I just stuffed a rag between the bumper and fender so that it was out of the way to do some dremel work. You can see in this picture the broken bumper thing I was talking about.
Cutting along the line I traced.
A few sparks and some noise later, the old tab is pretty much gone. I cleaned this up and rounded it out with a grinding dremel tip so that nothing was sharp.
I also ran the grinding bit along the plastic tab area to make it flush with the metal. I then used 80 grit sandpaper to smooth out the plastic where I had made my first cut with a box cutter.
To prevent rust, I lazily threw some of this on the metal area that I had cut.
Very lazily.
So, the bumper tab is relocated, and now it's finally time to roll. A few pictures showing the paint before the roll. Yes, it's dirty.
Well.. here we go.
At this point I didn't take any pictures, as I was trying to figure out how to use the damn thing. Don't worry, I took pictures of usage on the left fender. It's a bit more confusing than it looks. The fender isn't exactly round, so you cant just set the roller to one position and make it work for the entire area (or at least the area I was working with). After figuring out what knobs did what, I blasted the entire area with the heat gun and did some experimenting and worked SUPER slow. I would recommend doing several dry runs first (as in not actually touching the roller to the fender yet) just to figure out the controls, as you are going to have to make pressure adjustments WHILE you are rolling. I heated the outside of the fender before every adjustment, the lip of the fender, and most importantly the corner of the lip.
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zpeed (01-20-2018)
05-19-2012, 05:32 AM
#2
After some very patient work
..
..
Yap, that's the final product. You can't really tell that it's rolled at all if you were standing back looking at it. No paint cracks, no waves on the outside. I did have ONE goof up where I accidentally dropped the roller against the fender and it kinda scuffed up the lip, but that should buff out. I count that more as carelessness rather than the end result of rolling.
This is the area where the fender connects to the previously trimmed bumper tab. It actually sits really flush!
The scuff mark of doom. Right where it tapers out too.
So, the pics of how I rolled the other fender.
I would start at the top of the fender, and found that the best angle of attack was right around 30-40 degrees from the fender lips current position to start. I used the heat gun in between passes to keep everything hot the entire time. Eventually you will have the roller maxed out to 90 degrees to finish the roll.
As I started at the center and rolled my way toward the front of the car, I found that I would need to stop right around this point (you can see my silver sharpie mark where the extra reinforcement starts in this picture) because the shape of the fender changes, and if you keep rolling beyond this point you will end up flaring out the front and probably causing some damage. From this pic, I started out at the same angle as the previous pic, but you can see how much tighter that angle gets as you near this point. You have to completely readjust the roller to work on this front area, but don't do it last, do it during each pass so that you are keeping a uniform roll.
I'd also like to say that I've seen videos of people pushing and shoving on the roller to the point where it was shaking the entire car. I did not do that at all. every time I started hearing a cracking noise, I stopped, backed off the pressure, applied heat, and attempted to re-roll at a more shallow angle.
In this picture you can see that the roller is touching the fender, and it's pretty close to the stopping mark I made. Without adjusting anything, I rotated it to the center position:
Just to give you an idea on how much closer the front is than than the top.
I took it for a test drive to grab a bite to eat, took some fast turns, hit some bumps, and pulled into my driveway and didn't hear a sound for the first time ever running on star specs. Tomorrow I roll the infamous fronts and lower it all around.
..
..
Yap, that's the final product. You can't really tell that it's rolled at all if you were standing back looking at it. No paint cracks, no waves on the outside. I did have ONE goof up where I accidentally dropped the roller against the fender and it kinda scuffed up the lip, but that should buff out. I count that more as carelessness rather than the end result of rolling.
This is the area where the fender connects to the previously trimmed bumper tab. It actually sits really flush!
The scuff mark of doom. Right where it tapers out too.
So, the pics of how I rolled the other fender.
I would start at the top of the fender, and found that the best angle of attack was right around 30-40 degrees from the fender lips current position to start. I used the heat gun in between passes to keep everything hot the entire time. Eventually you will have the roller maxed out to 90 degrees to finish the roll.
As I started at the center and rolled my way toward the front of the car, I found that I would need to stop right around this point (you can see my silver sharpie mark where the extra reinforcement starts in this picture) because the shape of the fender changes, and if you keep rolling beyond this point you will end up flaring out the front and probably causing some damage. From this pic, I started out at the same angle as the previous pic, but you can see how much tighter that angle gets as you near this point. You have to completely readjust the roller to work on this front area, but don't do it last, do it during each pass so that you are keeping a uniform roll.
I'd also like to say that I've seen videos of people pushing and shoving on the roller to the point where it was shaking the entire car. I did not do that at all. every time I started hearing a cracking noise, I stopped, backed off the pressure, applied heat, and attempted to re-roll at a more shallow angle.
In this picture you can see that the roller is touching the fender, and it's pretty close to the stopping mark I made. Without adjusting anything, I rotated it to the center position:
Just to give you an idea on how much closer the front is than than the top.
I took it for a test drive to grab a bite to eat, took some fast turns, hit some bumps, and pulled into my driveway and didn't hear a sound for the first time ever running on star specs. Tomorrow I roll the infamous fronts and lower it all around.
05-19-2012, 05:33 AM
#3
After a few hours of sleep (I didn't get to bed until I finished posting the DIY for the rears) I woke up with a bad ass headache and started work on the front fenders.
So one of the more critical reasons why I wanted to roll my fenders was because when I first got the car, it had some whack wheels on it that didn't look good and also had a +42 offset. I could see that the previous owner had basically rubbed the very top part of the fender liner out of existence, and had slightly bent the fender lip itself. Shortly after wrapping those in star specs, as I was pulling into my apartment the front passenger tire caught the fender lip and pulled it out, while also slicing into my new tire. I freaked out, and tried my best to push it back into place, and even tried to roll that part upward with a small diameter pipe, which cracked the paint and added some small wavy lines. It's been an eye sore ever since, and I simply haven't taken it to a body shop since my fronts continued to rub that area (since I got the +45 rpf1's, it only rubs off the push tabs and the fender liner, and luckily I haven't rubbed the front fender itself again). Okay, enough rambling.
Front Fenders
Surprisingly, the front fenders seemed easier. The catch is that the fronts are wayy thinner, and my experience with the pipe showed the potential damage that could be done. Being careful is the key, even more so with the fronts. The front fender lips are also a lot smaller, so there isn't really much there to roll.
So after shes back on the jack stands and the wheel is off, the first order of business is to remove all of the fender push tabs, or in my case, the ones that haven't already rubbed off. You also have to use a phillips head to remove 2 screws that hold the liner to the rear of the fender, and also 5 (I think) 10mm bolts that hold the bottom half of the fender liner to the bumper and the center liner.
Evidence of rubbing
The fender liner itself is actually pretty large. I haven't yet put them back on, but I definitely will since I don't want water and dirt flung all over various components and on top of my CAI. My next post will contain pictures of how I ended up mounting this.
Just as I did with the rears, I cleaned the area that I was working with.
You will immediately notice 4 fender tabs. The top/middle 2 tabs are gonna have to be removed for a uniform roll. Due to the length of the tabs, I think if you did try to roll the fender with them on, they would be pushed up against the top of fender and might cause some cosmetic damage on the outside. I also felt that leaving them on would disrupt the pressure of the roll in that area and cause some waves.
A quick mask and mark for the area to be cut with a dremmel. I'm sure the neighbors love this part.
close enough.
After both tabs were cut, I used a grinder dremmel bit to smooth it out. Remember to apply some sort of paint or primer on the bare metal area to prevent rust. I noticed something interesting while I was smoothing out my cut.... Honda left us some OEM lines to follow for rolling!!! If you look closely in the picture above, you can see where I made a dotted line with a sharpie to mark this.
The lighting in this picture shows off the line. The fender starts to take a tapered angle at this point.
SWEET! There is another one in the front. Marked.
And now on to the roll. Since there is very little material left after cutting the fender liner tabs, you may even question if you actually need to roll the fronts. Just remember that on MY S, the tire caught that small bit of lip and caused some nasty scars. I don't know if it was due to the lip being smaller and thinner, or if it was just me having more confidence, but rolling the front fenders took less passes. Maybe 4 if I remember correctly. I started at a 40 degree angle which didn't do much to the top, and jumped the roller up to about a 60 degree angle. Just like in the rears, the fender is not the same shape all around. You have to relieve pressure on the roller as you get to the fronts.
A good pattern I used was:
Apply heat, Start at the front of the fender at the mark, add pressure, *grab the rubber part of the roller itself* and slowly twist it toward the center while gradually applying more pressure. Once it passes the center/top of the fender, start to release pressure as you near the rear of the fender. Change the angle and height of the roller and repeat the process.
I would like to point out that grabbing the rubber part of the roller and rotating it feels a lot safer than grabbing the arm of the roller and pushing/pulling. Also, watch your entire fender area for flexing when you are rolling, and listen for creaking/cracking noises (I got through the fronts without hearing anything). If you can see the entire thing flexing, then you might have too much pressure. I have no idea what the threshold pressure is to roll fenders before you start to eff up something is, but I do know the bare minimum amount to get the job done. It's not like this is a process that you are going to do more than once to your car, so take your time. Based on the timestamps of my pictures, it took me about 40 minutes to roll my first front fender. Using this same process I can imagine that I would be able to pull/flare my fenders without damage.
The end result. No waves, no paint cracks, no damage, and it looks OEM.
Now I can safely mount new front tires
tl;dr
Go slow, use heat, don't get greedy.
Fender liner re-install will be below
So one of the more critical reasons why I wanted to roll my fenders was because when I first got the car, it had some whack wheels on it that didn't look good and also had a +42 offset. I could see that the previous owner had basically rubbed the very top part of the fender liner out of existence, and had slightly bent the fender lip itself. Shortly after wrapping those in star specs, as I was pulling into my apartment the front passenger tire caught the fender lip and pulled it out, while also slicing into my new tire. I freaked out, and tried my best to push it back into place, and even tried to roll that part upward with a small diameter pipe, which cracked the paint and added some small wavy lines. It's been an eye sore ever since, and I simply haven't taken it to a body shop since my fronts continued to rub that area (since I got the +45 rpf1's, it only rubs off the push tabs and the fender liner, and luckily I haven't rubbed the front fender itself again). Okay, enough rambling.
Front Fenders
Surprisingly, the front fenders seemed easier. The catch is that the fronts are wayy thinner, and my experience with the pipe showed the potential damage that could be done. Being careful is the key, even more so with the fronts. The front fender lips are also a lot smaller, so there isn't really much there to roll.
So after shes back on the jack stands and the wheel is off, the first order of business is to remove all of the fender push tabs, or in my case, the ones that haven't already rubbed off. You also have to use a phillips head to remove 2 screws that hold the liner to the rear of the fender, and also 5 (I think) 10mm bolts that hold the bottom half of the fender liner to the bumper and the center liner.
Evidence of rubbing
The fender liner itself is actually pretty large. I haven't yet put them back on, but I definitely will since I don't want water and dirt flung all over various components and on top of my CAI. My next post will contain pictures of how I ended up mounting this.
Just as I did with the rears, I cleaned the area that I was working with.
You will immediately notice 4 fender tabs. The top/middle 2 tabs are gonna have to be removed for a uniform roll. Due to the length of the tabs, I think if you did try to roll the fender with them on, they would be pushed up against the top of fender and might cause some cosmetic damage on the outside. I also felt that leaving them on would disrupt the pressure of the roll in that area and cause some waves.
A quick mask and mark for the area to be cut with a dremmel. I'm sure the neighbors love this part.
close enough.
After both tabs were cut, I used a grinder dremmel bit to smooth it out. Remember to apply some sort of paint or primer on the bare metal area to prevent rust. I noticed something interesting while I was smoothing out my cut.... Honda left us some OEM lines to follow for rolling!!! If you look closely in the picture above, you can see where I made a dotted line with a sharpie to mark this.
The lighting in this picture shows off the line. The fender starts to take a tapered angle at this point.
SWEET! There is another one in the front. Marked.
And now on to the roll. Since there is very little material left after cutting the fender liner tabs, you may even question if you actually need to roll the fronts. Just remember that on MY S, the tire caught that small bit of lip and caused some nasty scars. I don't know if it was due to the lip being smaller and thinner, or if it was just me having more confidence, but rolling the front fenders took less passes. Maybe 4 if I remember correctly. I started at a 40 degree angle which didn't do much to the top, and jumped the roller up to about a 60 degree angle. Just like in the rears, the fender is not the same shape all around. You have to relieve pressure on the roller as you get to the fronts.
A good pattern I used was:
Apply heat, Start at the front of the fender at the mark, add pressure, *grab the rubber part of the roller itself* and slowly twist it toward the center while gradually applying more pressure. Once it passes the center/top of the fender, start to release pressure as you near the rear of the fender. Change the angle and height of the roller and repeat the process.
I would like to point out that grabbing the rubber part of the roller and rotating it feels a lot safer than grabbing the arm of the roller and pushing/pulling. Also, watch your entire fender area for flexing when you are rolling, and listen for creaking/cracking noises (I got through the fronts without hearing anything). If you can see the entire thing flexing, then you might have too much pressure. I have no idea what the threshold pressure is to roll fenders before you start to eff up something is, but I do know the bare minimum amount to get the job done. It's not like this is a process that you are going to do more than once to your car, so take your time. Based on the timestamps of my pictures, it took me about 40 minutes to roll my first front fender. Using this same process I can imagine that I would be able to pull/flare my fenders without damage.
The end result. No waves, no paint cracks, no damage, and it looks OEM.
Now I can safely mount new front tires
tl;dr
Go slow, use heat, don't get greedy.
Fender liner re-install will be below
