I agree. But think the future of those fenders is short lived. the driverside is already trashed. So I think a sawzall is in the future.
Just take those fenders out now and you can narrow it some and it is inedible anyway and then it will look like you meant to do it that way in the first place. Hey here is a link to my first gen if you haven't already seen it
http://board.marlincrawler.com/index.php?topic=45027.0 no fenders.