The first part of the project was the front end. The goal was to move the front tires out to balance the front and the rear track width and improve the inner clearance to the subframe – all while increasing the tire width to better balance the rear. As it sat the front track width as 2.5 inches narrower than the rear – most of that was related to the offset (about 1.5”) and the balance came from the difference in rim widths. We estimated that we needed to move outside of the tire out by 1.5 to 2.0 inches to match or slightly exceed the rear. This meant building new front fenders that would accommodate the space.
That’s not a revolutionary change with what’s been happening in our community for the past couple of years but we had a couple of specific constraints. I wasn’t going to do any bodywork behind the fenders so no reworking of the doors or quarters was in the card so the stretch on the fenders was going to have to be subtle and entirely done within the confines of the fender. Dick at BoS came up with a simple and efficient technique…
They started by separating the inner and outer structure of the fender:
Then they went to work with the English Wheel
