commence hacking

[taco502]

Ordered my 32x11.5's on 15x8 black uglies with 3.75 bs, I have a sagged 2" budget boost on my 97 (bought that way) going to trim fenders tonight (a lot) I have some ZJ coils, MJ shackles, TJ fender flares (to come soon) all that I plan to later add as needed. Any advice anyone have before I hack the fenders and add these wider rims and tires?

these are the tires.

 

[FitchVA]

i'm not trying to be smart...but do a search? i've seen a few good threads lately about hackin' the fenders.

 

[Arakele]

i beleive ryan at www.cheapxj.com has a write up if i remember correctly if not, only thing i can recomend is taping around where ya want to cut to avoid from chipping paint, and if ya dont care then just break out a sawzall and get to it

 

[taco502]

did my search I just wanted to make sure no one else has any more advice before I start slicing sheetmetal, or any advice on my set-up. gonna tape it up and hit it with an angle grinder and jigsaw.

 

[2xtreme]

Personally I think the metal shears work much better and cleaner.

Michael

 

[Georgia Mike]

For the perfect combination of least damaging,most precise,and fastest,you can't beat a good air powered body saw to do your trimming/"hacking" with.

 

[Kejtar]

TJ fender flares (to come soon) all that I plan to later add as needed. Any advice anyone have before I hack the fenders and add these wider rims and tires?

Best advice I can offer you is get the flares now or at least borrow a set to use as a template... you don't want to cut out too much The way mine are done is they are cut to less then needed to fit the flare bare on (it has a lip thing going on on the inside surface... you'll know what I mean when you look at one), then make couple incisions and bend it in to fit (this will reinforce the fender).

In regarding what to cut it with.... I recommend using metal shears as they give a really nice clean cut.... next thing after that would be high speed airsaw... but it's easy to loose it with that and go off target with it. The angle grinder.... well...... that's what I did my first trim with and it wasn't to pretty

Oh and yeah... do a search for threads about this topic and I have posted about it couple times and I did a really long thing about it in May/June/July time period (just after doing mine)

 

[xj92]

I used the shears on one of mine and the angle grinder on the other. I didn't care too much for the shears when it came to making inverted v's so I could fold pieces over. It seems to me it left it prone to cracking there later. The angle grinder leaves a nasty edge and needs to be cleaned up a lot too but does the inverted v's better and is a lot easier around some of the bends. Folding the edges over was a royal pain and I'm tempted to just do a straight cut without folds on the rears when I get around to it and cover them with something just to make sure they don't cut the tires.

 

[grasseater]

I used a plasma cutter after marking the fenders with the flare I mounted. Burns a little paint, but only about 1/8" in. A little sanding and krylon covered it up (it's under the flare anyway).

Easy to use and took about 5 minutes to whack each fender.

Open it up!

 

[taco502]

how exactly do you do the inverted v's? does anyone have any pics? because I'm imagining a jack-o-lantern kinda looking jagged tooth thing then fold the teeth back.

 

[Kejtar]

how exactly do you do the inverted v's? does anyone have any pics? because I'm imagining a jack-o-lantern kinda looking jagged tooth thing then fold the teeth back.

Hmmm I don't know what he means really by an inverted v...... for my trimming the fold up pieces were left as long as possible so that they could retain strength and act as a support.... yes cutting with shears is not as easy as holding a saw or torch to the fender but it's really clean and nice looking when done.

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?m=63978128303.38251080903&n=726128708

 

[Markm80521]

Right, or something doesn't really matter just knock it back. With the height your going just jo to the second lip. You'll see when you take the flares off.

http://www2.freepichosting.com/Images/116855/2.jpg

http://www2.freepichosting.com/Images/116855/3.jpg

http://www2.freepichosting.com/Images/116855/4.jpg

 

[taco502]

posted by XJ92
"I used the shears on one of mine and the angle grinder on the other. I didn't care too much for the shears when it came to making inverted v's so I could fold pieces over."

I decided not to cut tonight, gonna get my tires tommorow and hope they don't rub too much, then cut when I get the flares.

 

[Hunter-LynchburgVa]

here is a link to my webshots http://community.webshots.com/user/xjpart2

...just go to the section on scout 44/ mtrs/fender trimming. i showed pics of moderate trimming and thenthe kind where you need to re-weld the inner fender back.

HTH

Hunter

 

[XJWheelie]

Questions

Hunter, I looked at your photos; thanks for going to the trouble of taking them. I've got a couple of questions.

1) Do you fold the fender until it meets the inner tub and then weld it to the tub?

If you don't cut far enough to meet the inner tub do you make the folds 90 degrees or fold it 180 and meet the inner fender?

3) What's the silicone for?

I'm getting ready to cut for TJ flares and since I've never done this before I REALLY don't want to screw it up!

Thanks,
Robert

 

[xj92]

Hmmm I don't know what he means really by an inverted v...... for my trimming the fold up pieces were left as long as possible so that they could retain strength and act as a support.... yes cutting with shears is not as easy as holding a saw or torch to the fender but it's really clean and nice looking when done.

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?m=63978128303.38251080903&n=726128708

I left my pieces as long as possible too. By inverted v's I just mean where you have to cut so you can fold it back, an upside down v cut makes it easier to fold the stuff back without the 2 pieces hitting each other. I'll post pics later if I can get them on my site.