fender rolling techniques
 

I picked up my car yesterday after the alignment. Rides great and handles even better. New tires, lowered, new Bilsteins, bump steer spacer kit, turbo tie rods - all finally complete.

On one of my last turns at the end of a 1.5 hour cruise I had the dreaded front left tire rub. That fender is already rolled at the apex of the fender well but I am going to try to roll it a little more.

What is the best technique?
Heat or no heat?

Honestly, take your car to some one and leave. It's not pretty. I placed a bat on top of the wheel and rolled the car back and forth. Before that I hammered a little to smooth out a few rough spots. I know it's only a car, but it hurt to put it through such torture!!

Chris is right, the louisville slugger technique is the best, just wedge it up in there and rolllllll....

Do it slow...

sjd

Porsche actually has a “factory tool” that bolts to the front or rear hub. It has several rollers that can be adjusted to modify the lip or the entire arch! Really trick! The only place I’ve seen one is at a local (Alexandria VA) shop. My own experience in using the “bat”, was that after the initial role at the top, the tire catches the front lip at about the 9:00 or 10:00 position. A quick full lock skid pad test in an open parking lot should show where it is rubbing. Before you spend a lot more time on the top, try rolling the front half of the fender lip down to just above the bottom fender edge.

I am curious how much steel there is to roll on a untouched SC fender. I believe my rear fenders were around a 1/4 " or less to work with.

I did roll one rear side but was not happy with results. I decided not to do the pass side for this reason.

It seemed to me there just was not enough lip to roll/ get leverage off of. It appeared that the force required to roll the lip was transferred into the vertical section of the metal causing distortion in that area also.

DOn

Rear fenders on SC and Carreras really don't have much lip to roll. They don't tend to rub there anyway. Earlier cars had much larger rear lips that are easily rolled and provide room for more tire.

I use the bat technique and it works very well front and rear. Use a heat gun or hair dryer to warm the paint as you are rolling. This reduces the propensity for the paint to split.

Even if it does split, it's not a big deal. The split isn't really visible unless you have your head under the car. Just hit it with some touch up paint and you are good to go.

Some people use a razor knife to pre-split the paint, thus controlling the split location. Not me though.

At the last DE & TT I went to, there was a girl there was an early 911 with new tires, which started rubbing during her very first session. Another Porsche guy and I chivalrously performed an emergency fender-rolling on the spot. We used a large breaker bar and my fat a$$. Not pretty, but we didn't break the paint.

Chuck,

Thanks for the info !

DON