Bodywork, Paint, Interior, Trim, & Wiring

Well, I bought a set of flares from Steve Lives for my 1980 MGB 5.0 Ford T5 project. They have been sitting in my office fro months now while I got up the nerve to cut my quarter panels. After staring at Paul Schills Silver Bullet for hours on end, i finally went at my rear quarter panel with my cheapo Harbor Freight 3 inch cut off tool. Once i got started it went pretty well. Much easier than I expected. I have only moderate experience as a body man and this seemed way out of my wheelhouse, but it's actually not that hard. I will try to document this as I go.

Here is the outline after trial fitting:


Then I used some 1/2 inch tape to mark the actual cut line. I will mount the flares inside the metal like Paul did:



Here is the 1st trial fit after cutting the outside wheelwell. It fits almost perfectly:

Good luck with it. Going to look great when finished.

I like with & without flares. As much as I do like flares, I just couldn't cut mine.

I couldn't cut mine either, but because I didn't know how.


Paul

well here's a way with no welding, moderate amount of tools required.

I have ordered the wheel arch system from Dave as it appears to solve a lot of issues and will save me a lot of time. I did already cut out one of my inner wheelwells because I didn't fully understand his wheel arch kit. Plus I get impulsive with power tools in my hand! Looking at his pictures, I know i can make it work and I will hold off cutting the driver side until I receive his kit. More PICS and details to come...

OK, I got my wheel arch kit from Dave Craddok at Preform. I used his hood and Sebring rear valence on my car and these inner fenderwells in this kit are up to the specs of those other parts. Excellent!

Right off, let me say, if you are doing fiberglass fender flares of any kind on a B, get this kit. Also get this kit before making any cuts. I am convinced you can go from stock fenders to ready to mount you flares in 2 hours using this kit. All you really need is a 4.5 grinder with metal cutting blade plus a few hand/power tools to get this done. From what I can tell, The kit will work with any flares. It would have save me lots of time on my Huffaker flare install if I had really understood that this is more than inner fenderwells. Kudos Dave!

Now of course I did it wrong! I cut my outer wheelwells for my Huffaker flares before I got the kit. I had also had decide to mount my flares to the inside of the wheelwell like Paul Schills did on his car. It seemed like the flares from Steve Lilves were made for mounting under the sheetmetal rather than over. Fortunately, I am finding thsi wheel arch kit to be very flexible and good at fixing my screw ups.

So follow along as I bumble along using the Preform wheel arch kit to build inner fenderwells on my flare install.

Here is my 1st tinkering with the wheel inner arches. If I had gotten this kit before cutting and if I was mounting my flares to the outside sheetmetal of the car, I would 3/4 of the way done at this point.


After some pondering, I decided to cut the top of the inner arch so that it would fit under my cut wheelwells.
Beginning the cut


1st big chunk cut out. Now the inner arch begins to fit under my outer cut


After a lot of trimming, things are beginning to fit pretty good, filling the gap between the inner fenderwell and the flare, but there are still some gaps






I couldn't get the fit I wanted so then I decided to pull the inner arch off the car after carefully marking where it ended on the flare at the front and back of the car. Then I made a few cuts until the inner fenderwell lined up with the inside edge of the flare. That got it pretty close. I will do final fitting after the flare is permanently mounted on the car. This is completely backwards of the way Dave intended this to be used, but it works very well. It just shows how flexible this kit is. It would have taken me days instead of hours to get to this point if I had to mold fiberglass to fit and it wouldn't have look nearly as good.

I will get a pic or two of how it looks under the car so far in the next post.

I got my 245 45 16s today and ran up to the tire shop at lunch to get them mounted and balanced. I slapped them on the car and I have even more clearance than I expected, based on my measurements. The 245s on the rear definitely fill out the Huffaker flares nicely. You still have to imagine the front flares as I haven't started those yet. 225 50 16s on the front.

The car has about a 2 inch rake front to rear. It actually looks more exaggerated in the pics than it is.

OK, my motor runs and drivetrain issues are squared away so I'm back to my fender flare install. I cant really drive my car until its done! The windshield is out, which turned out to be a very easy 15 minute job and the driver side fender is off, cleaned and undercoated. I cleaned up the wheelwell and got the fender all ready for the flare. I still need to weld up a few trim holes on the fender (I best move that propane cylinder B4 any welding :) ). I was going to attach the flare with the fender off the body for an easy install but decided that might not be prudent for proper fitment.

Got the fender trial fitted:

Good decision doing the flare with the fender on the car.

Hey Keith,
Given enough time, money and persistence, anyone can restore a car.
But it takes a real man to cut one up.
Well done!
It's looking good.
Cheers
Fred

Thanks Rob. It took some pondering for me to figure that out, but definitely the right way to go.

Fred, as I recall, alcohol may have been involved with making that 1st cut! :) Well not really, but I grabbed my grinder 1/2 dozen times and chickened out before I finally made the 1st cut on that rear quarter.

I got some more done on the flares and they are now ready to permanently bond to the car. After reading a lot of posts and pondering this project extensively, I decided to drill 3/16 holes all around the flares for the adhesive to come through creating chemical epoxy screws. The expectation is that this will create a stronger bond between glass and sheetmetal. I temporarily attached the flares using rivets to fine tune the fitment and to drill the holes. Now I just have to pull them back off. clean and rough up everything and then attach them. I think I will use the rivets again to hold everything in place while the adhesive sets and them grind them flush to the metal. Then I will use torn fiberglass mat and epoxy resin to strengthen the inside joint and Duraglass to blend the flares into the sheetmetal.

Here are some pics of the progress and the car actually outside of the garage. It sits about 1.5 inches lower in the front than I would like, using lowered 550lb MGC springs. I would like to raise the front a little but not sure how to do that. Once the flares are bonded I will re-attach the urethane air dam and then I'll have a clue how she really looks. I like her so far!

Well I just couldnt resist slapping the air dam on to see how the car will look:

Looking good Keith, great progress.
Dave

The front doesn't look like it needs raising to me.

Yeah, lower the rear about 1" and its perfect.

The rear is already lowered. My biggest issue is I was looking for at least 5 inches of ground clearance for the lowest part of the exhaust and Im sitting a 4.5 right now. Plus I cant get a jack under the front air dam to raise the car for servicing. 1 inch would make a lot of difference on both counts and I dont think it would change the lowered look much?

Get a lower profile jack or drive the front end on top of 2x4 for jacking. Higher stance with flares looks........Strange

Here's the only one that will go under my spoiler & crossmember.

[www.harborfreight.com]