Rubber belt wheel arch extensions

[clbarclay]

Having recived an PM for some closer pictures of the externsions on my RRC, I though rather than just PM back I might as well put them here for anyone else that may be interesed. I didn't take any pictures during the build, it ended up with a late enough night as it was.

To start with the wheel outer wheel arches were cut to avoid the tyres. This resulted in an even 55mm cut off around the wheel arch to maitain the origional profile.

The section of the body behind the rear doors was also trimmed. This was cut leaving about an 1" to 1.5" of lip and them bent double to half the height and leave a strong rounded edge.

To hold the rubber belt on to the front wheel arches and rear half of the rear wheel arches, small 90 degree brackets were made, which were pop rivited to the body pannels and had a M6 rivnut for the extensions to be bolted to. These brakests started out as an excess length of old shelving, so most of the holes were already there. The brakets from memmory are approximately 32x44x3mm and the rivets are 4mm diameter aluminium.

The rubber belt I used was far from new, was part of a long length bought years ago to rebelt a gravel cart, so the under side was rather cracked, but still plenty of life left in it for this job. The belt is anout 10mm thick and has lots of fabric layers, but is still rather flexible while retaing its shape without any saggigng (with this much exension at least). I extended it inwards a fair disatance on the front so it now cuts down on the amount of mud the gest throught round the mack of the front lights and between the bolkhead and body pannels. The wheel arch can also be reomved quite easily for cleaing or aleting the amount of extension. You can see the M6 bolt heads and washers, but its like a wheres wally.

Working out where to drill the holes was a little tricky. I cut an over long length of belt and held in place with the right amount sticking out to cover the tyres, scribed along it where the body pannel touched it and marked the places along this line where the rinuts where. The holes were drilled 5/8" in from the scribed rivnut positions, perpendicular to the line of the wheel arch profile line. The excess belt was then trimmed off and the exposed corners where rounded off.

Being a 4 door the rear wheel arches were more awkward. The rear half of rear arches was done like the front section, but with less belt overlapping the inner wheel arch. There was not the space to use the same brakets on the doors so instead I cut strips of 1mm thick metal, poprivited them to the inner skin of the door and bent them under a the rubber belt. Tech screws were used to fix the belt to the metal strips. The tips of the screws do stick down a fair distance and are due to have the excess length cut off. Unlike the rivnut brakets, these strips do bent instead of the rubber, but its not often and untill they fatigue or get replaced with a better solution, they bend back easy enough.

I know the doors are rotten and due to a lack of time neither the brakets or the strips got painted.

[ThreeSheds]

Nice one!

[olioffroadking]

sound job!!