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Fitting 2500 front end parts:
- Thread starter zluster
- Start date
zluster
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Colorado Baby!
Ok this is the jist of what you need to do, basically you trim away some excess and then bend a lip back over, I forgot to take pics of the lip bent over so I'll get em later.
These fenders need serious work to fit right, its like someone got the idea right about how they are supposed to mounts but all the critical dimensions are off. it basically forces the header and then headlight to sit too far forward. I still might modify some US fenders now that I have these as a template.
For anyone considering this in the future I would recommend going that route.
Worked on fitting the 2500 fenders and headlights:
These fenders need serious work to fit right, its like someone got the idea right about how they are supposed to mounts but all the critical dimensions are off. it basically forces the header and then headlight to sit too far forward. I still might modify some US fenders now that I have these as a template.
For anyone considering this in the future I would recommend going that route.
Worked on fitting the 2500 fenders and headlights:
TexasComanche
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Texas
Thanks a ton Zluster! This was extremely helpful. In modifying U.S. fenders - would it be as easy as cutting out the headlight area to fit the header? Thanks again!
zluster
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Colorado Baby!
pretty much.
uFuentes
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Monterrey MX
NICE JOB ZLUSTER!!
WISH I HAD THOSE PARTS =(
WISH I HAD THOSE PARTS =(
So if you use the stock US fenders heacking up the header panel isn't necessary?
On another note... the US fenders may be easier but unless you want them to look all Ghetto you need to french the "ears" of those headlights. Maybe using a flanging tool. Just cutting the shape out looks like crap IMO (in the one instance I've seen it).
zluster
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Colorado Baby!
If you use US fenders then you just mod them to be like the 2500 fenders, just better quality. No need to modified the header panel, i don't even know what you could modify on the header.
zluster
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Colorado Baby!
No, that procedure is still the same. Nothing about the fenders affects where the core/apron support needs to be modified.
okay I was hoping the cutting on the core support was to help fit the 2500 fenders... I should have figured I was wishful thinking...
I'm not much of a fan of cutting into the unibody structure any more, like a lot of people I have cut fenders with no flares. Cutting out the rear pinch seam and then welding the folded bits back in eventually results in wavy distortions in the painted sheet metal above the wheel arch, because the stress that used to be born by the hidden pinch seam is now born by the very visible upper quarter panel... Not a big deal on a trail rig but real ugly on a nice DD.
No telling if the same thing is likely to happen with the fenders.
I'm not much of a fan of cutting into the unibody structure any more, like a lot of people I have cut fenders with no flares. Cutting out the rear pinch seam and then welding the folded bits back in eventually results in wavy distortions in the painted sheet metal above the wheel arch, because the stress that used to be born by the hidden pinch seam is now born by the very visible upper quarter panel... Not a big deal on a trail rig but real ugly on a nice DD.
No telling if the same thing is likely to happen with the fenders.
zluster
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Colorado Baby!
This part is completely hidden below the fenders and headers, if you do it right you won't even see the changes from the engine bay.
You'll note that I also put in some extra spot welds, (including some I didn't show in pictures). I am also going to weld the bent over tab onto the fender support. Overall this will make the front end a little stronger than it was factory.
Keep in mind though, the framerails carry the load in the front, the fender supports on the front end do little except hold the aesthetic body panels on(the front fenders are nowhere near structural).
I'm not going to tell you you're wrong, maybe cutting the core area's will have no long term detrimental effect, and maybe you're right that you will end up with a stronger core support. Especially if you take care to round any square cuts and drill the ends of saw cuts or fish plate them.
But...
The XJ is a unibody design, there are no front frame rails, there is a front sub frame, like every unibody vehicle, the entire metal structure including the visible area's lend 3 dimentional stiffness to the whole. The core support is very much more than a body panel hanger, It is basically the only thing acting as a front cross member. Which is the only thing keeping the shock towers and engine mounts from moving laterally or flexing torsionaly. the engine mounts are not rigid enough to stop lateral flex and don't have any vertical leverage at all to keep the fenders/towers from twisting vertically. They would tear themselves up without the support of the front core/cross member.
As it is in heavy off-road use XJ engine mounts are fairly well known weakness due in part to the flex and twist, even when all the core support area is unhacked... Just a thought.
As I said earlier one of the known unintended side effects seen from the cut and fold fenders mod is ripples in the sheet metal... you wouldn't intuitively think that the rear wheel arch was doing much chassis stiffening duty, but it does, the entire vehicle is a 3 dimentional load bearing structure.
But...
The XJ is a unibody design, there are no front frame rails, there is a front sub frame, like every unibody vehicle, the entire metal structure including the visible area's lend 3 dimentional stiffness to the whole. The core support is very much more than a body panel hanger, It is basically the only thing acting as a front cross member. Which is the only thing keeping the shock towers and engine mounts from moving laterally or flexing torsionaly. the engine mounts are not rigid enough to stop lateral flex and don't have any vertical leverage at all to keep the fenders/towers from twisting vertically. They would tear themselves up without the support of the front core/cross member.
As it is in heavy off-road use XJ engine mounts are fairly well known weakness due in part to the flex and twist, even when all the core support area is unhacked... Just a thought.
As I said earlier one of the known unintended side effects seen from the cut and fold fenders mod is ripples in the sheet metal... you wouldn't intuitively think that the rear wheel arch was doing much chassis stiffening duty, but it does, the entire vehicle is a 3 dimentional load bearing structure.
zluster
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Colorado Baby!
I'm not going to argue this with you. I'm not going to spend the time to nit pick the semantics.
The simple fact of the matter is that you can bend the factory "head light buckets" by hand. If you think they actually make two shits of difference in the body rigidity then just don't do this mod and stick with US parts.
Mr_Random
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Prescott, AZ
I'm gonna argue with him for you;
Go open your hood and start removing your air box, you will see there is an overlapping seam just under it, separating the rear half of the engine bay from the front. Just from some visual inspections right now I'm fairly positive the gauge of steel bumps down from rear to front. The shock "tower" even has some reinforcement on the underside.
If any of that makes sense, I'm pretty certain we can conclude that any strenuous load bearing parts of the "uniframe" are separate from the "hanging" parts at the front.
And have you not seen that there IS a front crossmember, right behind your bumper?
You can see in the last picture the overlap seam, where the "rear" portion folds up, if you look in the background just in front of the alternator.
zluster
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Colorado Baby!
Spot on, the front fender supports are a much thinner steel than the body behind them.
To top it all off the factory headlight buckets are held on with 6 spot welds, and with the header and upper radiator support off are pretty flimsy.
Nothing about that part of the body is important to he overall integrity of the chassis.
zluster
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Colorado Baby!
They are junk. When we first did this I did not lament that we were not able to get fenders.
The second time I was like.....hey, sure why not, $50 isn't that bad, lets get em, it will save me the hassle of having to hack up some US fenders.
So I get them finally, I'm all excited so I can finally get to work on my front end and check things out. And no disrespect to chris because I know its not his fault, but between all the shipping and everything, they just get too beat up.
Now lets say in future orders we get lucky and the fenders aren't beat up. They are of such poor manufacture I think it will take more time to get them to fit correctly, I will take some more pics tomorrow so you can see what I am talking about.
For starters, there is extra material in the a pillar area that keeps the fender from sitting flush in. That needs to be trimmed.
The edge where the fender meets the visible part of the windshield A pillar on the outside is an easy place to see an aftermarket fender. only the OEM tooling really duplicates the curve right, aftermarket parts don't goto the trouble to fit very flush. If you've seen the aftermarket parts I am talking about then you know what I mean on the windshield pillar area. These alexparts fenders are the worst I have ever seen they just sort to end, basically an edge, no curve to fit up.
Up around the top front edge where the fender meets the header the metal is bent over the front vertical support, when its bent over on most it gets squared off nicely, these end up with a rounded edge that not only would have a poor fit against the header panel(if I could even get them to fit together) but during the stamping process the metal becomes distorted and is wavy, I dont even want to think about what it would take to smooth that over properly.
Next up is the bit of bracktry that bolts up to the header, as I posted before the upper mount to attach the header panel is the same style as the 97+ fenders.
Well when you look at the 97 fenders its fairly thick steel that the mount bracket is made from, something like 1/8th inch. On this alex fender the same bracket is stamped from the same thin steel as the fender is, I don't know what gauge it is, but its thin, thinner than the sheet on the cheapest aftermarket parts you can buy here.
Now on top of that, the mount is so poorly copied that it forces the header panel to sit nearly a half inch further forward than it should, I simply cannot get the header to sit all the way back as it should.
Like I said before, the sheet is thin, real thin, real tin, the fenders just sound tinny, cheap, bad.
Little things are off too, know those slots that the rubber hood bump stops rest on? Well one of them is crooked on my fenders.
Today I bought two OEM fenders at the junkyard. I have an aftermarket US fender here I am going to practice modifying on, then I will move onto my "good" fenders.
Now that we have some chinese ones to use as a template, I plan to make paper templates, scan them in, and then other people can print them, and cut them out to modify good US fenders.
The 2500 fenders were a waste of money, I wish I had not bought 2 sets of them.
The second time I was like.....hey, sure why not, $50 isn't that bad, lets get em, it will save me the hassle of having to hack up some US fenders.
So I get them finally, I'm all excited so I can finally get to work on my front end and check things out. And no disrespect to chris because I know its not his fault, but between all the shipping and everything, they just get too beat up.
Now lets say in future orders we get lucky and the fenders aren't beat up. They are of such poor manufacture I think it will take more time to get them to fit correctly, I will take some more pics tomorrow so you can see what I am talking about.
For starters, there is extra material in the a pillar area that keeps the fender from sitting flush in. That needs to be trimmed.
The edge where the fender meets the visible part of the windshield A pillar on the outside is an easy place to see an aftermarket fender. only the OEM tooling really duplicates the curve right, aftermarket parts don't goto the trouble to fit very flush. If you've seen the aftermarket parts I am talking about then you know what I mean on the windshield pillar area. These alexparts fenders are the worst I have ever seen they just sort to end, basically an edge, no curve to fit up.
Up around the top front edge where the fender meets the header the metal is bent over the front vertical support, when its bent over on most it gets squared off nicely, these end up with a rounded edge that not only would have a poor fit against the header panel(if I could even get them to fit together) but during the stamping process the metal becomes distorted and is wavy, I dont even want to think about what it would take to smooth that over properly.
Next up is the bit of bracktry that bolts up to the header, as I posted before the upper mount to attach the header panel is the same style as the 97+ fenders.
Well when you look at the 97 fenders its fairly thick steel that the mount bracket is made from, something like 1/8th inch. On this alex fender the same bracket is stamped from the same thin steel as the fender is, I don't know what gauge it is, but its thin, thinner than the sheet on the cheapest aftermarket parts you can buy here.
Now on top of that, the mount is so poorly copied that it forces the header panel to sit nearly a half inch further forward than it should, I simply cannot get the header to sit all the way back as it should.
Like I said before, the sheet is thin, real thin, real tin, the fenders just sound tinny, cheap, bad.
Little things are off too, know those slots that the rubber hood bump stops rest on? Well one of them is crooked on my fenders.
Today I bought two OEM fenders at the junkyard. I have an aftermarket US fender here I am going to practice modifying on, then I will move onto my "good" fenders.
Now that we have some chinese ones to use as a template, I plan to make paper templates, scan them in, and then other people can print them, and cut them out to modify good US fenders.
The 2500 fenders were a waste of money, I wish I had not bought 2 sets of them.
I disagree the whole front core support is a 3d "cross member" the very concept behind a unibody vehicle is to use everything to increase the overall rigidity. Yes the bulk of the structure is behind the bumper, but that area is far less massive than a typical frame cross member. Just like rolling beads in sheetmetal, the 3d structure doesn't add mass, but it does add a lot of strength.
The stamped steel upper radiator support is an excellent example I'm glad you mentioned it... stuff really moves when you take it off. Along with everything else it is a part of what makes the core support a rigid structural member. Everything that creates tension or rigidity adds to the overall structure. There's a quote from a AMC engineer floating around the net somewhere that says even the windshield glass was accounted for when they were revising the original unibody design. Don't tell me they put a thick stamped steel upper rad support in their because they were afraid the radiator would wiggle out and run away
Or because the fiberglass header and plastic grill are so massive.Anyway have fun do what you want disagree all you want, I'll stop hijacking the thread. :yelclap:
Last edited:
BonesBrosChris
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Spokane, WA
Why would I be disrespected?
While I do feel the fenders are a bit dodgy and not worth the money, it just came down to thats what everyone wanted, but now seeing the product.... if there was a future order I would advise against buying them mainly because its just not cost effective to purchase a 'new' fender and having to spend time and money doing body work on them. I would think you can mod a US OE fender and come out a with less money and time invested. I do think that they are o.k. some some of the people on here who might not be doing the type of work that you do on XJ's. And all I mean by that is that you rebuild vehicles to a 'new' condition and are looking for a level of quality and fit-n-finish that I know some people on here might not care about.It just came down to this, the fenders are not perfect and the way they shipped them beat the crap out of them. On top of that everyone that I have left seems to be a little different.... some have more meat in the top by the windscreen, some feel thicker, some thinner, some in primer, some bare metal and some are just beat flat.
And I know how you feel Sam.... I got a stack of them sitting in the corner!
-Chris
