Hey guys, I have some Flares available ( made to order ). You may have seen them on the Facebook pages!!
These flares are meant to get the 1M wide body styling. They fit up to OEM 1M skirts and the OEM 1M rear bumper. The 1M front bumper fits to wider 1M front fenders, which fits to the wider 1M sideskirts, which fits up to these rear flares.. this is meant for the complete kit.
You can FINALLY fit some meats up front and plenty in the rear. Maximize grip, and look good in the process. These flares are sold for $450USD + shipping. They are the most affordable offering for the 1M look.... This was my first time touching any body work. If I can do it...YOU can do it !!!
" 1M Style " Flares .... Installation Guide.
**This guide is intended for the DIY route, and can be done in the comfort of your own garage**
1.) Prepping the quarter panels
- The first thing to do is mockup. You will need to prep the car with painters/masking tape to create a template, and insure proper installation.
2 .) Cover the quarter panels in masking tape ( The area only needs to be as big as the flare itself), and install the OEM 1M rear bumper and sideskirts, so you can align the flare with them to check fitment.
3.) Once the flare location is to your liking, draw a sharpie line on the tape where the top of the flare meets the quarter panel. This is your "DO NOT CUT" Line. DON'T CUT IT.
4.) +/- 3" below the "do not cut" line ( or whatever you feel comfortable with ) draw a secondary line. Leave enough space for the flare to happily sit there and be riveted in, but make sure you're high enough for the wheel to clear.....Don't cut to close. Don't cut too far away.
5.) *This is where the first "custom" bit comes into play * These flares are handmade, 1 by 1, not with a chopper gun or made in big batches. Every flare is made as thick as possible for strength. Because of this, part of the flare needs to be grinded down on the inside so that the top of the flare touches the quarter first, and everything is nice and flush when riveted down. want the flares to sit as flush as possible against the quarter. do this is completely to your liking before riveting. Only takes about 10 minutes, so grab your glasses, respirator, grinder, and get to it !
6.) Next step is to cut the quarters! *Yikes* ... Yeah scary, I know. But over 9000% necessary. You have your cut line. You have your do not cut line. Along your cut line, use a cutoff wheel or any special auto body cutting tool to follow that line. *REMEMBER* you are ONLY trying to cut through the outter panel and not the inner side. You want 3-4 inches of "inner quarter panel" showing, as you will slice it into tabs and pull them upwards to tac weld to the quarter. You will notice that your line will go through part of the rear bumper guide... That part will be cut as close to the cicled bolt as you feel comfortable... This is all for wheel clearence. Be as generous as possible with space.
7.) Ok you made it. You've totally ruined your 1er.. JK ... Keep it up. Cut the inner quarter panel into tabs. What you are doing here is creating a new wheel well structure. You will then bend the tabs up upward and you will notice they don't bend easily and you will need to make sure the cut is long enough to pull the tab up enough.
8.) Take a mallet or hammer and wack upwards to make sure the bends you have made are as flat as possoble so they won't hit the wheel. Make a nice wheel well!
9.) When the tabs are into place nice, grind down the paint along your "cut line" to tac weld the tabs to the outer quarter.
10.) Tac weld the tabs in, and CUT the excess tab off. Grind down the rest of the tab if any left over.
11.) Since we're exposing metal here, we need to prevent rust. This is very very important ! Spray an anti rust to anywhere that has exposed metal. Be generous with that stuff. Spray inside the holes inbetween the tabs underneath the quarter. Spray the welds !
12.) The next step here, is to frame seal the holes... Use a ton and use something to spread it flat so it sticks better. Last thing you want if you're not going to be running wheel well housongs/fender liner, is water and dirt getting up in there.
13.) You're now ready to rivet the flares in!! We used 1/8 aluminum rivets and a small manual rivet-gun from home Depot. Line everything to your OEM body parts and double check fitment.... Try to line up both the sideskirt to flare edge, and the rear bumper to flare edge as best as possible... You will need Bondo to create perfect edges so the better you fit it the less you will need. You will need another person to help make sure the flare stays put while riveted down...... But before you do this... Make sure to countersink the flare so the head of the rivet isn't sticking out. ( The name of the game in this project is using as little as possible of the bonding materials and keep it as close as possible to the natural 1M curves. ).... Use drill bit size similar to the shaft of the rivet so it can fit in snug and effectively anchor. Drill through the flare and the quarter panel.... Once you have made that hole, take a drill bit about the size of the head of the rivet. This will let the right sit down further.... *MAKE SURE* you don't drill to deep. Be very careful because the rivet gun may not be able to clamp down properly if it's too deep. This is EXTREMELY important or else you'll just drill a bunch of worthless holes..... Repeat until the flare is completely bolted on.
14.) Breathe ..... Take a step back. Enjoy your first glance at a wide body .... Throw your wheels on and check fitment. One thing about these flares is, the 1M they were molded off of, didn't have rolled quarters. So you might run into running issues and that is bad news bears on fiberglass. You don't want to damage your flares. You can cut off the excess material since you can't roll them, if need be.
15.) One or both your flares are now in ...I personally went 1 by 1 and started with the harder side ( one with the gas tank) ... The next step is to grind down the paint to bare metal so the Bondo can stick better. Be sure rough it up with sandpaper to get a good Bond. Anywhere Bondo will touch needs to be bare metal... On top of this you will also sand the flare where it meets the quarter panel so that the Bondo holds to the flare as well. We used a DA sander and 40 grit to take the paint down and rough up the surface of the quarter, and carefully used the DA to rough up the flare.
16.) Time for Bondo. So we aren't only talking Bondo filler ( we will use as little as possible of that ), but rather Bondo Glass. Glass is a short hair fiberglass impregnated Bondo that is much much stronger. You can usually find this at Orielly auto or Napa auto, if you don't want to buy it online. Take a clean paper towel and rubbing alcohol and rub over the flare and metal to clean it before Bondo. When mixing with hardener, grab a paper plate and test a mixture on it to see how fast it hardens. It typically hardens faster than the filler from what I have found. You don't want it to harden too fast or it will be a nightmare and you just won't be able to get it down... You don't want it to take forever to harden either, as waiting times are a big piece of how fast you will finish. Take a spreading tool and put enough down to cover the joint between the flare and quarter. Apply evenly and thoroughly.
17.) Once your glass is hardened, take your Bondo grating tool *cheese grater looking thing* to grind down the glass into your general shape. Try to make it as nice of a curve as possible. It definitely isn't cheese so put some elbow grease into it !!
18.) Once you've grinded it down you're ready to put the Bondo body filler on. This is going to to smooth up the surface and give you a nicer shape. With the filler, if it cures to fast, you will have little holes... As long as it's easy enough to apply and shape you should be good. Make sure you mix thoroughly before applying or it never cure properly!!
19.) Next step is to sand down to the shape you like. You will notice the high and low spots from sanding, and the goal here is to have as smooth of a surface as possible.... No waviness ! We used a sanding block with a piece of sandpaper over it instead of the DA. This was very tedious so if you feel you can do a better job with a DA and flex pad, feel free ! 40 grit works well and you will go up in grit as you want to smooth the surface. You may need to apply several layers to get everything right... Sand in a Criss cross pattern to minimize high and low spots...
20.) You're almost there.... Use finer grit wet sandpaper to tidy everything up nicely. We used about 240 grit so the primer would stick nicely to the bondo.
21.) The edges ... This is definitely the a little challenging.... You need to make sure the flare where it meets your other body panels has good fitment ! The way I did this was taping the edge of the bumper and skirt, and spreading the Bondo over it... It'll dry up ,rip the tape off and separate the bumper. you will then sand down to a nice edge. Intermittently you will have to fit the bumper to check how it's coming together. Make all the lines match up. Check the car out at all angles. This is definitely an art. For the skirt to the flare, i used a piece of cardboard and layed it between the skirt and flare.... this helped lay the bondo down to create and edge.
22.) There will most likely be imperfections....Pinholes from sanding too much and hitting the fiberglass, bondo imperfections etc.... Use Glazing putty to fill in the little flaws. .............Once all the imperfections are out, you are ready for primer. Prep your area, tape the car off, Mix your primer, grab your gun, and go at it. You will need a few coats as the Bondo will soak some up... if you are dipping or wrapping your 1er you want to wet sand the primer to 3000 grit... This will mimic clear cost as far as texture so the product can stick.
You're done !!!! Enjoy the wide booooooty! For anyone curious ... My wheel specs in the rear are 18x10 +25 ... 275/35/18..... The front is the same but with 10mm spacers and a 265 tire ( it's actually much wider because the 595rsrr runs big ). It's very aggressive so you will need camber to get it to fit even under the 1m fenders.