Preparing for 315's....

Thanks to some other members that have already done similar mods, I've begun hacking away at my fenders to begin preparing for some 35's. Finished the rears. Hopefully start on the fronts in a few weeks.

Basically, just used a jigsaw to cut 3" out of both the plastic flare, and metal fender. To give the flare a bit more support than just the plastic clips, I epoxied some of the cutout parts of the flare onto the inner side of it, and also did the same for the metal fender. This created a couple of tabs to be able to bolt the flare to the fender to give it some rigidity.

 

I think it came out looking pretty good!

 

X2 good job OP

 

It looks great!! Very clean cutout

 

Looks good.

 

Thanks guys. I even got the thumbs up from the wife when it was done. She thought I was nuts when I started cutting it up

 

Mine did too...

You are on the right track.

 

looking forward to seeing the front!

nice job!

 

Looks good

 

OP-
That looks AWESOME!!! Great job! I need to recruit you to help me cut mine when that time comes!!!

 

Oh - I'm sure it'll take me much less time doing it to someone else's truck

 

Phase II almost complete. Waiting on some material to show up so I can box the mount. Gonna try something completely different for this....

 

Lets see your pinch weld, thats the only place i still hit is the back of the fender well

 

Nice! I was considering doing this before getting glass. Definitely turned out great! Good job!

 

Pinch weld is as flat as it can possibly be I think. I even need to weld it in a few spots where it separated.

Which tires are you running? Seems the MT/R's run pretty big compared to KM2's. I'm planning for MT/R's, so I know I'll probably have some more banging to do.

 

I went from a 35x12.5 Nitto MT which actually ran over 13.2" wide, i went down to a 315/70 Hankook Dynapro MT, i only run the pinch weld, which i too flattened to the point of seperation.

 

Damn the cuts on the rear look almost factory.. HOW DID YOU DO THAT

 

Not sure how you guys are beating back the pinch weld, but if you cut the pinch weld down to the firewall every couple inches and hammer each section in the opposite direction of the one above/below it (kind of like a zipper effect), it will help keep it from splitting open.

 

What did your Nittos rub? I'm debating the 315 MTR at 9.6" tread width, vs another 315 that is 10.4" tread width. My fear is that the wider tread width will cause bigger problems. Both are about the same actual measured height.

Jigsaw....

I was going to do that, but it seemed there was more room to flatten them coming out toward the outside of the well, rather than mashing them toward the engine. I did split them every inch though, which made flattening them out MUCH easier.

 

They rubbed the same place as my new 315's rub, just rubbed more during turns and flexing off-road