Ex-pressed metal 1M rear fenders

[Jbam9]

Originally Posted by Burnout

First off the workmanship and crafting looks top notch, amazing job!!

What region of the inner wheel well patch would need a different profile to allow the liners to fit? Does it need to be more set inwards?

Thanks! I believe I slightly angled the patch downwards, instead of going straight out (horizontal) if that makes sense. This wouldn't be an issue if I simply test fit the fender liners before welding in the patch, but being the first one to do this project I was bound to make mistakes. The fender liner hits the patch right at the peak of the liner, where it would be furthest away from the axle. So my thought is to heat up the liner and see if I can get it to sort of remold around the new wheel arch. but if that fails, I'll get a large Kydex sheet and truly heat form custom liners

[Jbam9]

Originally Posted by fe1rx

Really fantastic and inspirational work Jbam9 . Thanks for sharing.

Regarding the missing studs, if you haven't resolved them yet, you might want to consider the approach I took on my Cayman to replace a few of the underbody attaching studs that had broken. The attached pictures should be clear, but I used Porsche's p/n 9A7 007 517 00 4.8 x 19 tapping screw as a starting point, silver brazed to a stainless washer, and then adhesive bonded to the vehicle.

The adhesive I used is intended for applications like this. Those studs are still standing 5 years on.

Attachment 3898363
Attachment 3898364
Attachment 3898398

This looks fantastic! I think I might just do this same thing, looks much better than the rivet studs. I have some extra 3M panel bond which would be perfect for this application. Thanks for the info fe1rx!

[Burnout]

Gotcha I can picture what you mean from a cross sectional view looking fore-aft, ie at the lip of the fender the patch needs enough height for the liner.

We’re all so greatful for you being the one to prototype these, it really does transform the budget Outlook to do the conversion!

[Jbam9]

Took a bit of a break, life has been hectic lately but I finally got that lower plastic bit which separates the interior of the frame rail from the interior of the quarter panel replaced. I used 1/4" ABS sheet I had lying around and some window and door spray foam to get it in there. Using an automotive grade 2-part expanding foam would've been the better choice here, but this stuff should be okay as well- we are simply trying to emulate what the factory did and get the area sealed off again.



On the left you can see the open space on the driver side where I had to remove the OEM piece to make room for welding and sealing. You can also notice how dirty it is down in the frame rail area compared to above it- this partition is definitely warranted. The idea of the ABS sheet + spray foam seems sketchy, but you can see from the remaining piece that that's exactly how BMW did it originally. The right side shows the passenger side after I got the ABS sheet foamed in place. I used a bit much, but I have minimal experience with this stuff and wasn't expecting as much expansion as I ended up with xD Either way nobody will ever see it, and it does the job it needs to do, so I'm happy with it. At this point I can finally put the interior panels back on, and just have the bodywork & paint left to do (+ custom/modified wheel liners)

[Ziggy]

Great job so far, I hope the Florida cold temps are not slowing you down
I also purchased and waiting for the arrival of the flares. I will be looking for body shop or individual in Chicagoland are to take on this job. I don't have time, skills or patience to do it myself. In regard to the wheels, I'm planning on getting 18x10.5" with 40 mm offset. That should fit without any issues or spacers. I will double check that once it's little warmer and I can get my car on the lift again. Now I'm running the 18x9.5" with 57 mm offset with OEM fenders. My plan is to run 285 or 295 tires on all 4 corners. There's only couple 200 TW tires in those sizes.

[DWN-N-OUT]

Looks great, this finally gave me the motivation I needed to order my flares and start sourcing the rest of the parts. Does anyone know if the non-PDC 1M rear bumper is unobtanium now? Everywhere I look now just has the PDC bumper with the dummy plugs.

[ShocknAwe]

Originally Posted by DWN-N-OUT

Looks great, this finally gave me the motivation I needed to order my flares and start sourcing the rest of the parts. Does anyone know if the non-PDC 1M rear bumper is unobtanium now? Everywhere I look now just has the PDC bumper with the dummy plugs.

It is. I had to order mine with the plugs.

I will likely have them filled and shaved

[ShocknAwe]

Originally Posted by Ziggy

Great job so far, I hope the Florida cold temps are not slowing you down
I also purchased and waiting for the arrival of the flares. I will be looking for body shop or individual in Chicagoland are to take on this job. I don't have time, skills or patience to do it myself. In regard to the wheels, I'm planning on getting 18x10.5" with 40 mm offset. That should fit without any issues or spacers. I will double check that once it's little warmer and I can get my car on the lift again. Now I'm running the 18x9.5" with 57 mm offset with OEM fenders. My plan is to run 285 or 295 tires on all 4 corners. There's only couple 200 TW tires in those sizes.

I'd go for 275/295. 275 is the most I'd put up front without work on the 1M. My liners are a little chewed up.

[ShocknAwe]

My quarters/flares showed up today! Quite excited.

[ShocknAwe]

To follow up on my previous post. Other body panels never showed up because my order got canceled somehow.

Frustrating.

But I do have my steel flares at least!

[rochoa21]

Amazing work, what would charge to do those ?

[kashikoi]

Jumping on this bandwagon. Dude, you have inspired me to DIY this. Gonna take my time researching and practicing welding on scrap parts but I've always been 100% DIY on my car minus wheel balancing due to expensive machinery. I do my own alignments though!

[kashikoi]

Did a rough cut today to just take a peek inside. Looks like I'm gonna go with keeping the inner tub mostly intact and just weld a thin 1-3 inches of variable width strip of sheet metal to close up the small gap between tub and inside of new flare.

Wheel well lining fits perfectly. I'll clean up my chaotic initial cuts first, then butt weld the new flare on, then seal up the cavity with my strip (I'll spray some epoxy primer up in there as much as I can maybe with a 360 wand or something; cavity wax later on that maybe I can feed through the trunk).

Just wanted to add my findings as most people might be starting off with virgin quarter panels like I am, whereas OP already had previous pie cut work and had to cut the whole tub out.

[ShocknAwe]

Terrifying. Kudos.

I badly want to DIY this but I have zero confidence in being able to finish it properly.

[kashikoi]

Originally Posted by ShocknAwe

Terrifying. Kudos.

I badly want to DIY this but I have zero confidence in being able to finish it properly.

I totally get that. Not sure why I'm not shitting my pants now doing this but maybe because my "I really want to do everything myself" neurons are overmatching my "whoa whoa whoa.. you sure you know what you are doing?" neurons.

If I fail, then at least I can be a lesson for others lol.

[ShocknAwe]

Originally Posted by kashikoi

I totally get that. Not sure why I'm not shitting my pants now doing this but maybe because my "I really want to do everything myself" neurons are overmatching my "whoa whoa whoa.. you sure you know what you are doing?" neurons.

If I fail, then at least I can be a lesson for others lol.

You'll be ok. Have you welded before? I haven't it's one of my pipe dream skills. I put it on a pedestal along other things I lack the time or space for like dropping my engine and doing large body panel resprays.

[kashikoi]

Originally Posted by ShocknAwe

You'll be ok. Have you welded before? I haven't it's one of my pipe dream skills. I put it on a pedestal along other things I lack the time or space for like dropping my engine and doing large body panel resprays.

I don’t have much experience but I spent a lot of time researching all the equipment I need and have been practicing with spare sheet metal. So far I’ve learned that welding is like a broad skill set. There’s buying a mig welder and various other pieces off Amazon and getting your wire speed, voltage, and gas settings right so you can do butt and tack welding in your garage at least halfway decently, and then there is mission critical welding skills for NASA and SpaceX parts. So there is definitely a vast welding spectrum. Fortunately butt welding a flare onto a quarter panel (although should be approached cautiously) is very doable for the astute DIYer.

But definitely research the hell out of it. Like little things. Obviously a welding mask and gloves. But with butt welding 0.023 wire you might feel inclined to be like I’m good with a tshirt and shorts, but you can literally give your self a sun burn with all the UV coming off those welds! So do some minimal body coverage with clothes that won’t melt! And of course always do your own research. I personally spent hours watching videos and pitting Gemini against ChatGPT on their various responses to my questions, etc..

[tylerzgl]

Thanks for adding discussion over the virgin panels, I'm pretty much at the same point as you.

Are you going to cut slits in the inner fender tub? or just hammer up or leave it is as? I'm concerned about wheel clearance if i don't touch the inner tub and just weld a patch between that and the new fender.

Curious to hear your thoughts and plan over it, thanks!

Originally Posted by kashikoi

Did a rough cut today to just take a peek inside. Looks like I'm gonna go with keeping the inner tub mostly intact and just weld a thin 1-3 inches of variable width strip of sheet metal to close up the small gap between tub and inside of new flare.

Wheel well lining fits perfectly. I'll clean up my chaotic initial cuts first, then butt weld the new flare on, then seal up the cavity with my strip (I'll spray some epoxy primer up in there as much as I can maybe with a 360 wand or something; cavity wax later on that maybe I can feed through the trunk).

Just wanted to add my findings as most people might be starting off with virgin quarter panels like I am, whereas OP already had previous pie cut work and had to cut the whole tub out.

[kashikoi]

I wanted to preserve the inner flare as much as possible, but realized I needed access in the back to use a copper back plate to help with butt weld beads, and afterwards to run a flashlight behind to check for pin holes. So I cut along these red lines, roughly, I put in your image. This access is also helpful later on to scuff the welded seam on the inside and degrease, before epoxy priming it and seam sealing. To close up the cavity I am going to cut some simple rectangular shaped enclosures from sheet metal maybe few inches in width, and tack em with a few beads against the inner flare and inside of outer flare; but keeping in mind the angle of these enclosures to not interefer with the inner wheel well. I did not cut the structural looking piece of the inner flare. Maybe it doesn't really matter but seems difficult to cut anyway, and its angle doesn't seem to interfere with the wheel well lining. Going to try and keep the gaps between the enclosures small enough to seal em with up with seam sealer.

[ShocknAwe]

kashikoi

Do you have more photos of your process? I'm getting closer to just going for it myself after I do the valve job on my 964 and driving that daily again.

[kashikoi]

Originally Posted by ShocknAwe

kashikoi

Do you have more photos of your process? I'm getting closer to just going for it myself after I do the valve job on my 964 and driving that daily again.

Yes, in the coming week or so I will plan to start my own build thread and share my results instead of hijacking OP's thread. Stay tuned!

Oh and 964? Nice!!

[Jbonly21]

To the guys that have started or done the job, I just got my panels and have the long weekend off. I would like to start the process, but I’m still waiting on my rear bumper and side skirts. Just wanted to know if the fitment is good enough, if I was to weld on the panels with out the bumper, I wouldn’t have any problems fitting the bumper after.