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This is what I did incase anyone else wants to give it a shot. These are probably no stronger than any stock fender but in my book I would rather have my fender crush then do damage to something more inportant. My goal was to keep as much of the stock fender and all of the inner fender as I could.
I started out by lining masking tape where I wanted to trim my stock fenders and trimmed away. Since I am using 1" tube I cut a small piece and laid it under the fender and drew a line that was about the halfway point.
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I trimmed the fender on the downslope about 1/2" before I hit the inner fender, I was going to add a tube there but decided it would do any good so left it out. On the front I cut it about 1/4" behind the factory seem. Now I don't own a tube bender so I had to improvise, I decided I would go with two 45 degree bends to make up the 90 needed. I don't have a pics of this step but what I did was cut each piece at a 22.5 degree bend and spin it around to make a 45 if that makes sense to you. I fully welded the 45's and then put it in place and tack welded the original fender sheet metal to the tube.
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As to try and not warp the metal to bad and burn holes in it I just tacked the hole thing grinded it and tacked again.
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When I was done tacking I grinded it all smooth, I then added a small piece of gusset in the front for a little more strength and looks of course. I added a strip of sheet metal about 1" x 7" between the fender and grill so that I could weld everything together fine.
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From here i used a small amount of body filler to try and hide the weld as much as possible.
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After sanding I primed and painted, I used spray paint but have since redone my paint with auto paint. What do you think? All in all it was about 8 hours work for both side, it took me longer on the first side as I cut way to much metal out and had to weld it back in, I am very happy with them and maybe have 25 bucks invested.
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I started out by lining masking tape where I wanted to trim my stock fenders and trimmed away. Since I am using 1" tube I cut a small piece and laid it under the fender and drew a line that was about the halfway point.
I trimmed the fender on the downslope about 1/2" before I hit the inner fender, I was going to add a tube there but decided it would do any good so left it out. On the front I cut it about 1/4" behind the factory seem. Now I don't own a tube bender so I had to improvise, I decided I would go with two 45 degree bends to make up the 90 needed. I don't have a pics of this step but what I did was cut each piece at a 22.5 degree bend and spin it around to make a 45 if that makes sense to you. I fully welded the 45's and then put it in place and tack welded the original fender sheet metal to the tube.
As to try and not warp the metal to bad and burn holes in it I just tacked the hole thing grinded it and tacked again.
When I was done tacking I grinded it all smooth, I then added a small piece of gusset in the front for a little more strength and looks of course. I added a strip of sheet metal about 1" x 7" between the fender and grill so that I could weld everything together fine.
From here i used a small amount of body filler to try and hide the weld as much as possible.
After sanding I primed and painted, I used spray paint but have since redone my paint with auto paint. What do you think? All in all it was about 8 hours work for both side, it took me longer on the first side as I cut way to much metal out and had to weld it back in, I am very happy with them and maybe have 25 bucks invested.
