Rear flares using Factory front fender

[mschel]

Hi, I have two (late) fenders that are trashed on the front and back but have good flares.

I want to cut just the flares out but wondering how much of the surrounding metal people normally use when welding onto the rear quarter. The install will be way in future but I need to clear the space.

The quarters on my car are in bad share in the flare area so its to fix that plus get slightly more rear clearance.

Thanks.

[redroadster]

Can you post an image of the flares on the rear ?
It has an internal or external panel to connect to the body ?

[Alvin]

If I understand correctly, you want to install the front fender flares on the back fenders, yes?
Doing so would look something like this:



Not the factory rear flare profile, correct?

[mschel]

Hi. Yes something like that eventually.

[fairlane292]

Anything is possible but of course both the fender wheel well and rear qtr wheel well have inner and outer panels. The likelihood of the inner and outer sheetmetal of both the front and rear mating together is slim to not at all. If the body was on a rotisserie you would have the opportunity to butt weld inner well panels seams (no overlapped seams to trap water and cause rusting). Off hand I'd say the approach should probably be to cut away all rust then create a closed inner wheel well, that the fender flare will continuous weld to: 1. at the outer body, and 2. at the then more easily accessible closed inner wheel well.

Before doing anything I would suggest checking the remainder of the rear qtr incl trunk wells and where it meets the rocker. If that is all ok then strip the qtr below the trim line to bare metal for final check on rust-through. If there's much more than just the wheel well then seriously look into new or nice used qtrs (even if it means buying an appropriate donor).

Quite a lot of work there and until you start getting into it it's hard to say what it'll take to do it correctly. Welding that thin old Japanese sheet metal is especially painstaking. You can get a pretty big tire/wheel combo in the stock wheel well; IMO it's best to keep stock rear wheel well but we're all free to do whatever we like. just my .02

[VA67.5]

If you search youtube for the "Chopped and Swapped Roadster" with Larry Chen (2019 roadster build for SEMA) you will see that rear flares that match the front were made by Ulterior Movtive. They talk about the flares at the 2:40 point in the video.

Having an accurate outer flare will be very helpful.

[redroadster]

20240220_175640.jpg

My 70 the rear quarter lips rusted
I found complete wheel lip replacement panels for a Mercedes
C no D 220 that went right over ,I secured it with flush aircraft titanium rivets
Then putty, from JC Whitney's back in 93 ,pretty cheap too .$60 for both sides ..I wonder where the dies went to ? I'll take a photo of them ,but a back shot as ,darn gremlins piled up junk next to the 311 while I wasn't looking
saw these
https://www.millsupply.com/auto-body-ru ... er-panels/
The 1st one with the lower trailing part was close to mine although they had asheet metal above the lip but the ones I used were late 60s to 72

[drieseck]

For me this qualifies for the "something that makes you smile" list.

You just can't make this up: "replacement panels for a Mercedes C 220 that went right over, I secured it with flush aircraft titanium rivets. Then putty, from JC Whitney's."

The injenuity, experience and education from this community really can't be understated. Keep it coming.

[ADR]

In April of 2023 Ulterior Motives quoted me $425 for a pair of flares which match the Japanese Classic's Chopped And Swapped project, and $275 for a second set if all four corners were needed. These would not be returnable since it's not one of their standard designs.

That's a very good deal, considering the many hours of labor and cussing that would be required to make a lower quality set by yourself without their production tooling.

As mentioned in the thread above, the job is bigger than just adding the flare to the outside of the quarter panel. Plan appropriately!

[fj20spl311]

VW RABBIT 2DR REAR FLAIRS HAVE BEEN USED IN THE PASS, SO HAVE OMNI. YOU CAN GET RUST REPAIR PANELS THAT INCLUDE THE FLAIR.

THE FRONTS WOULD BE GOOD FOR INCREASING THE FLAIR ON THE FRONT.

THE VW FLAIRS STILL REQUIRE SOME METAL WORK AS THERE IS A MOLDING INDENT THAT NEEDS TO BE POUNDED OUT.

[mschel]

Wow thanks for all the replies. Will definitely check out those options