Fender & Tyre Damage

[AirCooledExcellence]

Hi All,

I've just returned from a 'spirited' drive and found the lip of my drivers side fender bent slightly and a gash in my new tyre!

I'm wondering if my shocks are bad and allowed the tyre to come into contact with the lip?, my ride height is set to 25 inches at the front and I have an inch between the tyre and the lip. When I push down on the fender it only moves abount half an inch and pop's straight back up with no bouncing.

As far as I can tell from the service documents It had new inserts about 7 years ago and the car has only covered about 20K since then.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Tim.
____________
1983 SC Targa

[Thomas Owen]

I would think that in a turn, if you hit a bump, the tire would travel more than the 1/2" you see when pressing on the fender.

[RarlyL8]

You should have heard or fealt the tire hit the fender.
Not always the case, but if it was violent enough to leave the damage described you should have noticed something. Hitting pot holes while turning a corner will do it every time. Roll or trim
the fender for a little extra room.

[BierHunter]

Mine does the same thing.

Rolling the fender is something I'm not familiar with. Do you mean to just bend the inner lip up a bit or something like that? I'm getting some new tires put on this weekend, and I'd hate to get things all messed up.

Thanks.

[juanbenae]

my 78 has done the same thing after spinning at an AX. i have been informed that my car may be a bit too low @ 25" in the front by a mechanic, at the event i was told "it can never be too low". they told me to trim or roll the fenders too. i read up a bit and found that rolling the fenders decreases value and since my car is a garage kept unit with low miles i figured better to hold off on anymore events until i get it balanced and save the body scaring for my tatoo artist.

[RarlyL8]

Rolling the fenders decreases value?
What the heck you got there, and original 959?

If you do it right, rolling the fenders should not be noticeable to anyone but yourself. I supose I wouldn't cut the lips out of a concourse car, but even that wouldn't devalue one in my mind.
Now chewed up tires and dented up lips - that will devalue a car.

I have used the business end of a wooden ball bat wrapped in heavy duct tape. Do it real slow and in small increments. You don't want the paint to crack. This will only work if your tires SLIGHTLY rub. If you have too much hanging out the tire can actually push up past the rolled lip and pull the lip out as the tire comes back down. This would (obviously) be very bad.

[Overpaid Slacker]

Damn, RarlyL8, taking a bat to your .own car? Well, your solution is the second I've seen today involving Porsches and duct tape. Check out the cupholder thread for another duck/t tape solution.

[Superman]

I found the wooden baseball bat method best myself as have some of my friends. Louisville Slugger.

Another method that actually is probably as good or better (leaves no void to invite rust) is to take a belt sander to them and just sand them off. Sounds rude but hey, it's a car. And it's your car.

If you want an investment, Enron stock is probably selling pretty low right now. And they're in the electric power business. When they're done throwing that industry to the greed lions, drinking water will be the only industry outside the NYSE. Stock up now and save.

Okay, now I know I'm getting out of control again.

Okay, I can't this edit: When electric power is finally deregulated, watch the promises of better service and lower prices be fulfilled.

[juanbenae]

not a 959 crotchety old bastard, just a very prestine 78 sc that is very original {66K miles}. i would not take a bat, nor a hack saw to my car for a "965 GT LOOK". IMO stock as a rock is better than a riced up fiberglass job that anyone looking at would recognize as a butcher job. any one need a sawzall with a fresh blade?

additionally is a GT Look hack job a SCWDP car? just wondering.

[RarlyL8]

Little testy aren't we?

Obviously you don't know how to properly roll or trim a fender. That's OK, we're all here to learn. Bring that garage queen over to my place and we'll make a runner out of it.

By the way - my butchered up chop job of a '78SC started out as a bone stock pristine one owner with 78,000 miles on the clock. I got a paint chip on the front bumper one day and thought maybe a full body strip and paint would fix it. Things just got a little out of hand from there.....

[Doug E]

I've seen a few cars with rolled fenders and if someone hadn't told me it was done I'd never have known.

Guess the trick is in the way you use the stick.

[pnzr911]

Baseball bats? GRINDERs? DUCT TAPE??? Are we talking porsche or a rumble???

[CamB]

I think the important thing here is that Rarly said you can only fix a small problem. How wide are your new tyres? More than 205 at the front? What about the wheels - standard Fuchs? One inch wider?? More!!

On my car, the tyres would go up inside the fender rather than into the edge of it, if the suspension was too soft.

Need more info

[Steve W]

Just wanted to add, use a heat gun to soften the paint at the edges a bit prior to rolling with a baseball bat. That should help prevent the paint from cracking at the edge. But don't get too overzealous with the gun or you will blister the paint off!

For those who don't understand the baseball bat method, you stick a baseball bat between the tire and fender edge at an angle while you roll the car forward slowly. The tire will make the baseball bat roll forward and against the fender lip. Roll the car back and forth a few times until the desired amount off lip roll is achieved.

[RarlyL8]

Steve - I do it a little differently. First thing is to jack the end of the car up so the tires are off the ground. Then, using a second jack, lift the tire you are working on up to a point where the bat will have a good angle to roll. I then roll the bat itself. This gives me total control to prevent damage to the fender lip. It's rather difficult but effective.

[AirCooledExcellence]

Hi Guys,

I have pretty standard wheels/tyres on my car; 16x7 inch fuchs with 205's on the front. I was hoping not to have to roll the lips but it looks as if I'll have to!

Thanks for all your advice!

Cheers,

Tim.
____________
1983 SC Targa

[89911]

My brothers car, (an 87 coupe club racer) is at the paint shop. The shop owner is doing rolling the fenders prior to painting and did it a different way. He used hand tin snips and cut about half the flashing off the lip to allow for better bending of the lip and then gently crimped the whole well until it is perfectly flush. It looks unchanged from the stock wells. Even though it is done often, the problem with rolling unaltered wheel wells is there is a lot of metal to deform and bend to get flush. As a side note, I saw and SC that some JA completely cut the whole lip off. Not only does it look bad, it has absoulutely no resistance to deformation and bending. Consider adding some negative camber also. My fenders are bent slightly and I run 225 with 8's up front and never rubbed. The inner walls, well, that's another story.