Flared rear wheel arches

[Ian Kelly]

Hi guys,

I'm going back to 205/60/13's on the rear of my R1 Fury (from 185/60's). Last time I had this width of tyre on, the rear of the arch \ tub rubbed slightly on the tyre when the suspension compressed. That's why I took the 205's off originally, but with a long trip planned in June I'm going back to the 205's to get 4% higher gearing (every little helps!).

I can't change the alloys to get the overall offset further inwards as I'm already a few mm from the brakes. So I am going to widen the arches, but I'm not sure of the best approach. Options -

1) Get wide arches and rivet them on. Last time I looked at them in the Kit Car Workshop they were pretty rough GRP, not sure of BGH will have improved them. Anyone bought them from BGH? Or anywhere else?

2) Widen the existing arches myself. If I go down this route, what's the best way to do it? I was thinking of cutting the entire arch off (agghhh!!!), relocating it to a wider position with riveted ali strips, and filling out the gap with GRP, and finally removing the rivets. I could then paint up the arch in black to contrast with the red bodywork, as I can't afford a respray.

Any advice most appreciated, I'm a novice with GRP.

Thanks,
Ian

[adithorp]

Ian, is it the wheel arch or the return edge thats the problem?
A lot of cars have the return edge taken off. The complex curve of the rear wing gives it plenty of rigidity even without the return. The orange Fury that was parked infront of mine at Stoneleigh is like that. When I was building mine BHG advised the same if I needed to. Fortunatly mine clear. What offset are your wheels?
New/altered arches sounds like a lot of work in 5 weeks!

adrian

[Chet]

Fyi-
I believe Chris at BGH was creating some new wheel flares for the Fury.

An alternate solution is to widen the flare by slicing the existing flare EXCEPT for the ends. You can then pull the flare away and fill the created gap. This preserves the original edge and is easier to accomplish.

Chet

[Chet]

FYI
Different makes of tires have different actual dimensions. This difference may be enough for clearance.

Chet

[Ian Kelly]

Hi,

It's the return that's rubbing the tyre, but it's rubbing all the way across it's width (10mm-ish). If I did remove the return, the tyre would still hit the outer edge. Would probably be even worse with the return removed, as it would leave 1-2mm of GRP that might cut into the tyre or shatter the arch.

The tyres are the same ones as I tried last time, A048's in medium compound. I'm running 13x6 with ET19, which is the size recommended. The brake flexi hose is about 4mm from the wheel rim.

Thanks Chet, that's exactly what i was thinking. Although now I think about it, and after Adrians words of warning, it seems daft to widen the whole arch just because it's rubbing at the rear most point.

I think I could maybe just remove the offending section, and put some pimpy carbonmods 'mini mud flaps' on to cover the offending section. Hmmm, carbon...

Ian

[RobMsport]

Just bite the bullet and cut 10 or 20mm's out from the curved arch then flare it . Use a piece of alloy 50mm's wide or so and the length of the arch curve . Jam it between the tyre and your new reduced curve with pieces of pipe insulation or polystyrene. Drill small holes all the way around the new edge for the glue or f/glass to grip into. Then form your flared edge on the alloy and ' just ' up the edge to reach those holes . Nice thin layers , about 3 fine glass or 2 thicker glass . Don't worry about the exact width , when it's set you can cut back to where it's wanted after removing the alloy strip. Finally curve it nicely with the stranded ready mix glass(P38 rings a bell ) --- then shape and smooth with filler (P40) -- I may have those two back to front I hand brushed mine carefully and it looked acceptable but not concours.
Once I'd managed to damage the car a couple of years back , it then got done properly/sprayed but he said the arches didn't need prepping so I'd got them pretty smooth

If you PM me with your email address I could send you pic's of the stages from cut to paint. Each arch took me several hours with waiting in between for drying etc but I'd say lumped all together the four arches took me 10 or 12 hours.

[matt_gsxr]

Having seen them yesterday I can confirm that Rob has lovely flares.

Matt

[adithorp]

Is it just at the rear edge at the bottom? I've seen the return and edge trimmed back there so that it clears. Mine's very close but misses.

adrian

[Fizzer]

Just to throw in a curve ball - why not change your diff for higher gearing? I've just swapped my 3.89 for a 3.54 - much more touring friendly.
Then I fitted some Newman cams to compensate for the loss of acceleration

[Ian Kelly]

I'm already running a Freelander 3.2 diff, so can't change the ratio.

Ian