Re: W'W'What?

[Tom Mandera <tsm1@domain.elided>]

>         Tom, where do your front tires rub?

My front tires will rub at about the very top of the front wheel/fender
*LIP* if the anti-sway bar is disconnected.  You can see the pictures of
my Scout on the Pontiac.. the front tire on the hood has plenty of room
to compress some more.. and it will.. until the tire catches on the
fender lip.. when I'm backing up a steep hill to turn around, it's not
so pleasant a sound and feeling when those big mud lugs start grabbing
and "brrrrppppping" on the fender lip.

My rears do not *currently* seem to be rubbing.. of course, I haven't
*really* twisted it lately, and after 6 months, they are nearly
*BALD*... I'm almost to the wear bars!  Time to decide - buy two more
33x12.50 STTs, or... buy 4 new 35s?  muahahaha.

Now that I've stripped most of the body off of this rusty '72 Scout II,
I have plenty of templates to work with... I want to cut the inner front
fenders and the outer fenders.  I'm thinking of cutting the outer fender
right about where the "flare" ends (if you look, you'll see the fender
flares a little before it goes to the straight vertical edge around the
wheel opening).  This flare corresponds to a flare on the inner fender
that goes from the horizontal/flat top to the vertical piece of the
inner fender.  I'm thinking of cutting both such that the outer fender
would have just a little bit of metal left.. enough of a lip to fold it
over and make a nice curve from the outer to the inner fender. 
Essentially opening up the wheel opening to be a few inches taller (as
tall as the inner fender) all around.  It'd be nice to find another
truck that has a similar wheel opening (like Ken F suggested) and then
acquire a set of flares.

And of course, I think I've explained my rear wheel well plan before..
though a new idea was presented to me - find an old pickup truck with
larger wheel openings, and cut the wheel well from *it* and then graft
it onto the Scout II tub.. vs. fabbing my own wheel houses.  For the
'77, which will just be elongated and maybe raised, I think I'd cut it
to leave the lower portion of the wheel well in-tact (with the rear seat
latch) and then graft the larger wheel house to the top of that (notch
the new wheel well to match).

Any suggestions on a wheel well that would accomodate 35s or larger? 
Pickup box maybe... or..?

The more fabrication I do, the bolder I get...

-Tom Mandera, Helena MT
http://www.tmcom.com/~tsm1/scout
Now that I have a few spare axle shafts, might be time to try 35s on the
'77.. and start hunting down a Dana 60...