How much larger fenders do I need?

So I have a 2012 with OME 885s up front for about 2.75" lift. I'm running some 285 hankook dynapro MTs, as well as 17" XD addicts.

The rims + tires stick out a lot, and has greatly reduced the travel of my wheels. If I hit a dip fast and hard enough, I hit my stock flares. How do I accurately determine the size rise/flare I need when shopping for new fender flares?

 

Welcome to TW btw, do they hit while turning or straight? Are you sure its hitting the fender and not the Cab-Frame mount? You can trim a bit away, unless your wheel offset is alot, Mcgrim has a nice post(s) in his build thread for extreme trimming of the stock fenders.

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-builds/104272-mrgrimms-mall-crawler.html

 

My guess is he is hitting the cab mount and mistaking it for rubbing on the fenders. Do some trimming of the fender wells, the inner fender, pinch weld....and while you are at it, get yourself a cab mount chop and your issues should be solved.

 

Had socalduckslayer do the cmc, and he said he trimmed out everything he could. I am fairly certain it's hitting the flares, but I will double check (with pics) later.

 

I show about 5.5" of clearance between the top of my tread and the fender flare (worked out to be 5.5 once I straightened the wheels out). The inside of the wheel well looks really clean to me.

The tire itself sticks out about 2.5 inches away from the flare, so when I hit a good sized bump, that makes my suspension compress to 5.5 inches or more, I am hitting that flare with the tire, and the force of the truck coming down on it. It is only a matter of time before I break them off

So I am wanting to stop the tires from smacking the flare by replacing them, but I am unsure of how big I need to go. Suggestions?

 

You might need like glassworks fender??

Or a smaller tire.. I'm pretty sure that your suspension travel should be around 8-9 inches and assuming that some of that travel is used up by the weight of the truck, you shouldn't need more than 7 inches for your wheels to compress so you could try a new flair if it would give you another 2 inches of clearance..

I'm not sure that I've heard of just replacing the flairs though? You might need to cut your flairs out and trim all that rubber inside the wheel well, or just get like glassworks Long Travel fenders and no liner.

 

I think bushwackers are flares that get added on to the factory fender and glassworks are whole replacement fenders that include extra rise and flare in the design. At least that's what I think >.>

I guess I am still wondering how *big* I need to go. How big of a rise do I need? How wide of a flare? I like to go off roading, and this problem has basically crippled my offroading because it keeps hitting the fender on compression.

 

Bump for some advice!

 

If you really can't hack anymore out of your fenders/flares and your bump stops are tall enough (ie you aren't bottoming out your shocks) Then just get some fiberglass fenders. I like the glassworks ones.

These are the 4" flare 3" rise ones with some 285 tires.