Please, 'splain pulled fenders

So I know about rolling fender lips to clear tires, and have done it on two or three cars, but what does one to to "pull" fenders to achieve such clearance?

There was a guy on bimmerforums who did this to clear space for wider front wheels on his e21, and the article for the BRZ (or FRS, which ever it was...) on this site says they did the same thing.

Help...

When I hear this I thing of the times that I actually grabbed a fender and pulled on it to gain tire clearance. Not as effective as using a dedicated fender rolling tool but it worked for me when I did employ this method. Someone else may offer up some other more involved process but when I hear it that's what I think of.

Pulling is the act of rolling your fender lips and not stopping until it starts to flare the fender out a bit.

It frequently looks like crap. The radius of the rolling wheel never quite matches the shape of the wheel well so they just look a bit off unless they are hand hammered and finished. They also tend to employ a lot of body filler

If you use a proper fender rolling tool, you can make it look pretty good. I've pulled the fenders on a few of our shop cars and nobody's ever noticed. No repainting or body filler required.

Like most things in my life, I think I've rolled the wrong way - usually that inner lip sits parallel to the ground, and I would roll the lip up behind the fender (if that makes sense).

I confess that jimbbski's description is what I thought of, but that white car with the green wheel looks to have taken the lip and pulled it "out", or the opposite direction of what I normally do.

Mr. Tanner, have you some pictures of a "proper fender rolling tool" and or some before/in process/after pics?

Whence I ever straighten out the neat Enkei wheels I found for the e21, I'd like to employ that method for a little extra clearance on the front. 15x7s poke out a little too much for my taste, and some fellas with lowered cars (as is mine) have issues with the tire scrubbing the fender with the wheel turned and suspension compressed. This happens on my e30 too, and it berkeleys the fender a bit.

Most guys seem to roll the lip inside. Gently prying it out adds more length to the lip, which gives you more to pull wider. I'm currently pulling the lip from inside to out very gently with heat to prevent cracking. So far, so good. I did literally pull the fenders out with my glove hands for some of the pulling and also used a mesquite branch to pry the fender, using the tire as leverage. My proverbial baseball bat. It works pretty clean if you go slowly, although also pulling the lip out makes for an initially rough job and hammering and filler is needed more so. It's been a fun project and have pulled the fender out about 2" and will pull some more with the next bigger wheel change.

Truth be told, I've never done more than rolling, but I've never used any fancy rolling tool. Baseball bat, iron pipe, fence post, anything round that doesn't crush.

Of course, I've only done it on american muscle cars. Some cars I'm told don't like that treatment based on how they're designed. I've heard you can crinkle things if you're not careful.

A proper rolling tool and technique will go a long way towards getting a better result. You can take a stab at it with a baseball bat, etc. but you might get an uneven result or even crack your paint.

As silly as this may sound, I would try and reach out to some of the local enthusiast community, especially the "Stance Kids", because most of the time they are trying to stuff an 8.5" to 9.5" wheel with stretched tires into their wheelwell and cambering the crap out of it too just to make them fit in the wheelwells. That means that every millimeter is precious. I know one guy in Milwaukee that owns a fender roller and has done HUNDREDS of cars and charges $20 per fender. I would recommend signing up for vwvortex forums and asking for fender rolling in the regional forums.

I don't think i've ever seen pulled fenders look good, but i've only seen it done for people to hellaflush their cars so theres that.

Because of that I always thought it was a ricer/stancekid thing.

I pulled the MX6 a good 1.5" or so on every corner to clear rubber.

I'm going to have to go another inch to clear the next wheel/tire setup.

Tools used: Baseball bat and a 4lb sledgehammer. Amusingly, the two that i used the sledgehammer on look WAY better than the two i used the bat on.

I went on the net and Googled it - there was a stance guy using a heat gun for the paint, a jack, and a phone book (they still make them? Or was it from the "used book store"?).

I guess it literally is "pulling" but I didn't figure the metal would give enough without wrinkling somewhere.

He was doing it on a fairly new car, too, and by golly, no fender wrinkling or anything.

Not sure how it will translate on the e21's fenders, as there's not a lot of material up to where it hits the frame/unibody/front clip (? I'm at a loss for words this morning...).

I will definately hit the VW Vortex link, I'd like to check everything I can on it.

I have used a wooden base ball bat from WalMart to roll fender lips under. End of bat on tire for more leverage.

Some fender rolling tools for you http://www.eastwood.com/autobody/fender-roller.html?SRCCODE=GA030100&device=c&matchtype=e&network=g&creative=29103222300&gclid=CJuyp6zoqLwCFTCCQgodBV4APg

Proper fender rolling tool:

Miata fender with a 235/45-17 underneath. These are indeed pulled, there's a fair bit of extra room over stock.

Pulled fenders on an NC. These were done in the pits at Laguna Seca in a bit of a hurry, but they're pretty representative. Those are 255s under there. The only place you can really see it is where the metal fender ends.

I have the Eastwood version as well as the powered by max version. They work well if used properly.

In reply to Swank Force One:

I think a newer car might be easier than an older car because the metal is newer and more malleable. Old cars the paint is pretty much garunteed to flake or crack.

EDIT: Sorry Swank Force, meant for that to be In reply to OldGray320i. Either way lol.

Desmond wrote: In reply to Swank Force One: I think a newer car might be easier than an older car because the metal is newer and more malleable. Old cars the paint is pretty much garunteed to flake or crack.

I didn't really care if it did or not. It did flake a bunch, but not on the outside face of the fender, so i didn't care.

I do need to fix the job and seal it all up, though. Been about a year.

Mr. Tanner, great "after" pics. That work looks really smooth, even the NC done in a hurry.

I didn't care what it looked like afterwards(I might clean them up a bit whenever I go to paint it) but this was done with a steel baseball bat, heat gun, and the stock jack. It is a pull and roll on the front and the rear is just pulled for clearance. In the picture its 235/40r17 RS2's on 9" wide wheels, but it will fit 255/35r18 rubber on all corners as well without the fenders touching.....its also lowered alot.

The Eastwood Rollers are good. I think that's what the guy that did my fenders used. They aren't cheap, but if you had to resort to buying one you would tray and rent it out to people too. I've seen people doing that before. Generally speaking the people I see rent them out or do other people's fenders (if they are good at it and have a good reputation for it) make their money back on it.

Huh, I posted a reply but the forum ants ate it.

We got our roller from Tire Rack. I've seen the same one sold in a few places. They're a definite income producer - if you showed up with one at a track day, I'll bet you could recoup your investment pretty quickly. It's $259 for the tool. At $20 per fender, that's only 4 cars.

When I pull fenders, I concentrate on pulling out the whole fender instead of just deforming the lip. It does have some limits, but I find I get a better end result. Also, lots of heat on the lip to keep the paint flexy.

I use a hammer to first roll the fender lip back and then continue to whack away until I get the desired amount of flare. Works pretty good on the TR8s I restore. You can gain an easy 2", but you will need to do a little body work to smooth the lip out before paint. Not something you want to do unless you plan on painting the car anyway.