Fender Separating?

[nutt7]

I know a few others have had similar issues as me: my fenders were squeaky and now the skin is not completely attached to the inner frame. What is it, some spot welds that bust? It made a crack around my battery tray mount and probably other places too. It makes my front end feel floppy. Anybody have any luck repairing them? Or is it easier to find “new” solid fenders? Thanks

 

[mrk5]

I'm looking to put on "new" fenders but I've been thinking about trying to reinforce them.

 

[nutt7]

I'm looking to put on "new" fenders but I've been thinking about trying to reinforce them.

I might try that too. I have a few things I’d like to hang on the inside. I think it started when my tires started bumping the corners of the fender. I wanna say it was maybe @muddysub that fixed his up?

 

[muddysub]

I welded them back together at the cowl where they broke, also welded up a crack in the cowl on the passenger side. It feels a little better but the passenger side fender squeaks now. There’s got to be a broken spot weld in there somewhere. I’ll have to remove the fenders to fix them properly. Might as well engine cage it while it’s apart to stiffen up the frame and keep this from happening again. In order to do all of that I’d have to down the truck for a week or so, she’s my daily driver now so that can’t happen any time soon.

 

[mrk5]

I welded them back together at the cowl where they broke, also welded up a crack in the cowl on the passenger side. It feels a little better but the passenger side fender squeaks now. There’s got to be a broken spot weld in there somewhere. I’ll have to remove the fenders to fix them properly. Might as well engine cage it while it’s apart to stiffen up the frame and keep this from happening again. In order to do all of that I’d have to down the truck for a week or so, she’s my daily driver now so that can’t happen any time soon.

Yeah, I was thinking some sort of engine cage would be nice. It would definitely take redoing the engine bay though.

 

[mrk5]

I'm bumping this back up because my fenders have gotten bad enough the door is jamming up on the fender when I open it. I don't have a picture of mine but I've borrowed this one from @muddysub thread.



I've got replacements from donor vehicles that I'm thinking about putting on. I'm debating about doing some reinforcement. At the very least putting in some welds in addition to the spot welds that you can see above are torn out.

I'm curious if anyone has tried something similar.

 

[nutt7]

I learned that mine were Taiwanese replacements...probably why they cracked. I ended up welding the cracks and the tops of fenders like you showed. So far it’s ok...only ran a few miles of trails though. I’m casually looking for genuine fenders and hood. I didn’t bother reinforcing them due to their origin.

 

[mrk5]

I learned that mine were Taiwanese replacements...probably why they cracked. I ended up welding the cracks and the tops of fenders like you showed. So far it’s ok...only ran a few miles of trails though. I’m casually looking for genuine fenders and hood. I didn’t bother reinforcing them due to their origin.

I'm a little worried they will just fail somewhere else, even the factory replacements I have.

 

[Chevy305]

I had some aftermarket fenders that did that. I ended up tossing them in the garbage and getting a nice set of originals. No problems since.