4Runner Fender Hack

[TheBandit]

I posted this about a year ago on another forum, but thought it should be here too so others can see. Sorry if some of this is broken up since it was original posted over a long period of time.

This post includes pictures of trimming both the front and rear fenders on my 1st gen 4runner for added tire clearance, including making new wheeltubs for the rear. This is my first time doing this, so bear with me!

The offending sheet metal:



I used an adjustable square with a pencil strapped to it for making the fenders out. This is about 2" for the front fenders.



Am I really doing this?



Looks like I used a can opener.



Now that's better...



Looks funny with 33" tires



Firewall tub would be nice.

[TheBandit]

Time to start the other side.



Take this sheet metal!



I always end up with a goofy smile when I do this sorta thing 



Almost... there....



Now I just need the courage to start on the rear.

[TheBandit]

I went for about 3.5" in the back, all the way around.



Here is where I cut the wheel tub. I used the sawzall from underneath.



What the cuts look like from the inside.



Peek-a-boo!






When I get done with the wheeltub, this is gonna look badass. Can't wait to reep the benefits of increased uptravel without muching the fenders.



My tip for anyone doing this is to invest in a few sawzall blades. I did all of the above with ONE blade and a cutoff wheel. Using the same blade was a bad idea because on the second front fender and again on the rear the blade caught the sheatmetal and jerked it around pretty bad. That can happen even with a brand new blade, but after use the blade gets kinda wavey and makes it more likely.

Also I would say don't let the blade stop moving. If you hav to pull the blade out of the metal, do it quickly while it's still reciprocating. This will keep it from catching and fubaring the metal.

"Ya know... when Paulie and I started this project we really weren't sure how it was gonna turn out"

"My dad really wasn't sure about cutting the fenders."

"But now that the first cuts are done ... I think it's going to turn out alright"

[TheBandit]

Did a little more today. I think the rear of the tub will turn out fine.



It's the front that bothers me.



Really need help here:



Should I keep cuttin'?



I am thinking about cutting it to the above, but I basically can't taper it up like that for more than 4-5 inches (vertically). After that I hit the backseat recess area.

---

The new fender...



All cardboard... will be fixed with ductape



This overlap should keep the weather out. (Actually I will be putting the final wheeltub panel UNDER this original sheet metal, not above/inside it).

[TheBandit]

Okay, so maybe sheetmetal would work better.



Awesome points to anyone who knows what this quarter panel came off.



Getting an idea of how flexable the sheetmetal will be. Never done this sorta thing before.





I'm going back out to strip the wheeltub panel some for welding and remove some of the fender paint. Hopefully the wind will die down so I can tack this in today. I can only pull about halfway into the garage (door too low).

[TheBandit]

Welp after looking at this picture from this writeup the decision was pretty easy.

Boy this whole project is a step-for-step repeat of what others have done. Sometimes I feel like I'm just building a combo of a bunch of other people's rigs. Oh well... takes some skill to do this kinda stuff even when you copy.

On with pictures:



In the above pic you can see a section where the sawzall blade was catching bad and made a nice ripple on the outer fender cut. I straightened this out after taking this picture. Pretty easy to do with two pairs of pliers.





Back to work for me.   

---


I finished up the trimming and removed paint & sealer from the areas where I'll be welding. I decided to try something that I hadn't actually read about. I used a couple rivets to hold the new wheeltub to the old wheeltub (now a 1" flange). The rivets didn't work to well, so I switched to self-tapping screws. I went along and secured the new wheeltub to the flange, pushing it up against the outer fender to maintain proper bend/shape. I only put in like 4 screws, spaced really far apart. I only wanted it to be held in place so tack welding would be easier.

Well as I did that I discovered my original template/cut just wasn't going to work now that I did a proper cut at the front.

So tomorrow I'll pick up a sheet of 18 gauge and start over with a new template.

---

Here's the new sheetmetal: 4x10 sheet of 20 gage. I'm glad I was able to get this in town so I didn't have to drive down the freeway with it hangin out the back like this. 



This time I decided to get more sophisticated than cardboard for the template. The last templated failed miserably because I used one of the straight edges of the cardboard against the inside of the old tub, then marked only the outside edge and cut it. That didn't work because you couldn't possibly form a straight edge on the inner fender and still form the outter section. Both the inner and outter edges of the patch panel need to be curved. Pictures explain it better. This is the crappy old panel made with the bad template. See how you couldn't possibly match the outside edge?

[TheBandit]

Ok, so on my second attempt I decided to put a lot more time into the template. I used some postal wrap, which is the thick paper stuff you wrap boxes in before you ship them. I got a 100ft roll from Longs for under $10. I hardly used two feet of it to make this.



It was a lot easier to make in pieces than try to cut out the whole shape at once.



Next I transfered the template to the new sheetmetal.





That fits MUCH BETTER!!! 



On the same trip out for the sheetmetal, I bought some 0.024 wire and tips for the Millermatic 175 I am using. I went with the suggested voltage and wire speed from inside the cover (2.5/50) for 20 gage. That worked pretty well for tacking it in.

[TheBandit]

That setting also worked pretty well for welding, except of course sheetmetal is a pain to weld. I worked in short zaps and found having more wire stickout (like 1/2" or so) worked really well. That's how I got the middle section welded in the picture below. Then as I started rounding the corner going over the top, the weld started looking  :barf:. I decided to try welding on the vertical section (near the bottom) again to see if I just sucked on the horizontal, but it only got worse.



I blew through in a few places and the welds started looking really bad. DUH! I ran out of shielding gas!!! :shaking:  I felt like a complete moron having welded all that crapiness without realizing I was out of gas.  :emb:

So now that the weldbird has flown over and shirt all over my fender, I think I'll have to get some more shielding gas tomorrow and scare him away.

This is all very new to me. I've never welded sheetmetal before and until this project the only thing I'd ever used a sawzall for was taking out some flooring.

I'm really happy it's turning out pretty well.


Here's the little I was able to get done today. I finished welding the outside. It went a LOT better with shielding gas  :laughing:. The tough part was going back and filling in where I blew through yesterday. I have a feeling once I cut the excess down and grind it flat, I will have some holes to fill in again.





And since I have to make a long drive today and wont be working on this again until next week, I primered over the outside welds and threw some ductape over the inner seam which I have yet to finish.



Welding sheetmetal isn't as easy as thick stuff, but now that I've done a bit of it, I'm not afraid of it at all. A good fit is very important and if you have any gap at all, don't attempt to bridge it in one pass. Use very short zaps, maybe a second at most with a second or two pause between. Like I said above in an earlier post, it seemed to weld better using a good amount of wire stickout.

I know I am taking a very LONG time to get this project done. It's not that doing it takes a lot of time, it's just I'm very busy and have only been able to find an hour or so here and there to work on it.

--

Welp nobody said anything and off I went welding on the outside between the outter fender and the wheeltub, as shown above. Today I finished welding the lap section where the wheetub meets the old wheeltub (inner), so I decided to cut off some of the excess metal on the outside and ground down the weld.

Damnit... not enough penetration :crybaby2:. I ground down about 10 inches in length and for about 4 inches of that you can see where the old sheetmetal meets the new wheeltub.    I don't understand how that happened. The heat was high enough to easily blow through, so why didn't it join the metals? There wasn't a gap when I welded. I kept the patch panel held up against the outter fender while welding.

Well off to see how much penetrated and how much didn't. Maybe I will get by with a few tacks on the interior to keep things together.

[TheBandit]

I finished cutting off the excess. I used the cutoff wheel first, then the grinder. This is definetly the most grinding I've ever had to do. After about 5 minutes, I realized my ears were ringing pretty bad, so I put in some earplugs



Near the top you can see there was some warping. Maybe I went too fast or should have put in some more stitches first.



When welding, I burned through at the front bottom and the rear bottom. My repairs didn't work too well, so now I have holes there. Any tips for patching? Maybe I will put small pieces of metal behind the holes and weld them in.

Otherwise, the welding looks okay. The only section that had the really bad penetration I described above was where I was welding without gas.





And finally, here's a sorta before & after showing what the untouched passenger side looks like compared to the nearly finished driver's side. 

[TheBandit]

I am going to get some seam sealer this afternoon for the inside and I will take some pictures before and after I put it on. I've taken over 50 pictures of this project - a true webwheeler! :emb:

Last night I put some body filler on the outside so I can sand things flat. I've never used body filler before and after trying to sand it a little this morning I realize I put it on a little too thick. It's Bondo brand body filler I got from Home Depot. I also got some 80 and 120 "For Metal" sandpaper and a good sanding block.



--

Here are some pictures of the inside. You can see the burn-through holes I had to fill in (one big and one small on the inner welding and the big one at the bottom rear outter welding). Also there is a good smoketrail where I had a small fire. For safety I had a bucket of water with several wet rags along with a fire extinguisher.

[TheBandit]

Here is how much bondo I put on. I thought this was too much, but it turned out I was able to sand it down easily with 80 grit paper. Took about 10 minutes is all.



After sanding, there were still some low spots.



I didn't want to pile on any more bondo until i filled my weld holes. I finally replaced the clear protective lense on my hood.





Boy that made things easier! I welded all my holes up without any backing material, thanks to being able to see what I was doing. It really helped avoid burning through. Then I ground down the welds and coated things with a layer of body filler. Tomorrow I will sand and hopefully primer. 

That's it for tonight. Hope to have things somewhat finished tomorrow.

[TheBandit]

Next I globbed on all this bondo!



It took a lot of sanding, but I liked shaping it with the sanding block. There weren't any more low spots after this.





And here's a view to get an idea of how straight it was. It's not 100% perfect, but the body filler and careful sanding definitely made a difference. 



And the moment of truth! 













I put on about 5 coats of white primer, waiting a bit in between coats to let things cure. It's a rattlecan primer (Rustoleum Automotive) that cost about $6/can.

I also have some spray on undercoating I got from an automotive paint shop in town. That cost $9/can (bought 2). And a got a tube of seam sealer, but I can't find my caulking gun, so that will have to wait until I can make a trip to the Home Depot. I am going to seal the inner weld from both the interior and exterior, and seal the outer weld just on the interior. Then I will use the undercoat on the exterior wheeltub and maybe just some black on the interior.

--

Finished the seam sealing and undercoating. Here is a picture:


I am really happy with how it came out. I have no plans to put an exterior topcoat on in the near future, so it will be blotchy white until I can afford to paint the truck. DONE FOR NOW  (other side wont be for a while)

[TheBandit]

I picked up a roll of the chrome trim from AutoZone. It has 3M adhesive on one side and goes on a flat surface. It really looks factory: I just hope it lasts a little while before it starts peeling or gets ripped off.

Here are some pictures from my last offroading trip. Hopefully you can get an idea from these shots. With the top off I couldn't get the driver's side to stuff enough to rub.

[TheBandit]

That's all I got for now. I'll try posting up some of my other projects here too as I get the chance.

[N.S.Runner]

Very nice job. I did the same thing to the rear of my runner.

[beater82]

Looks pregnant dogin'.  I've been wanting to do some stuff to my wifes 87 runner.
Where the 33's rubbin' that bad with the chevy's or did you just want to tweek out on your' truck?

[johnnygalt]

Looks good!  Thanks for the inspiration, I need to do the same to my 2nd gen..

[Hottrod81]

Thanks for posting the information.

[TheBandit]

Very nice job. I did the same thing to the rear of my runner.

Thanks!

Looks pregnant dogin'.  I've been wanting to do some stuff to my wifes 87 runner.
Where the 33's rubbin' that bad with the chevy's or did you just want to tweek out on your' truck?

What does pregnant dogin' mean? That has me a little lost. The 33s weren't rubbin' too bad with the Chevys, but I definitely gained some useful uptravel. Mainly I wanted room for future tires.

Looks good!  Thanks for the inspiration, I need to do the same to my 2nd gen..

Thanks! I don't envy the 2nd gen 4 doors. You just don't have much room to cut on the front part of the rear fender. If you are going to do a leaf spring swap, I would consder moving the rear axle back a couple inches so you don't have to cut in this area.

Thanks for posting the information.

No problem! Hope some people can benefit from this.

[DTB]

What does pregnant dogin' mean? That has me a little lost.

it means u have your potty mouth sensor turned on

[79coyotefrg]

Thanks!

What does pregnant dogin' mean? That has me a little lost. .

.

   he said  its bi-ch-in dude

[TheBandit]

it means u have your potty mouth sensor turned on

Time to switch up my preferences.

[RynothealbinO]

Nice job on the fenders man.  I cut my rear fenders just over 2 inches but I still have about a 1 inch gap between the inner and outer fenders.  I also have to cut my front fenders to match.

[Yota4life]

I just rear the whole thread and you did a great job. If i ever get rid of my pickup and get a runner i will do the same.

[DTB]

Looks good man. just be careful because bondo can explode. well, that's what i heard anyways.      hehehe

[gotrocks]

very very nice tech thread. You posted this just in time for my rear tub job on my rig.  I started to tub it a different way but I'm going to go the route you just did for ease and how clean it turned out.  I'll let you know how it works.

THanks again.

[Yota87Truck]

Great Info, Thanks, I might do it to my 87 Yota Truck, I t hase the same fender type.  But I don't know how the rear fenders would work out in my truck bed.  I will have to take a look.
Thanks again for the very detailed info and Pics

[86ToyRun4x4]

Nicely done. Been looking for some step by step pics for dummies (me not u) style, as Im bout to begin my chop. Appreciate it, thanks.

[1Bad4Runner]

I really like the way your fenders came out, I this I may have to do my Runner like that... only my body is fiberglass.

[Wermz84]

  Those turned out nice.  good write up too.