Here’s some pictures of my rolled front fenders
Not only do I get more fender clearance for my tires, I no longer have to worry about my tire hitting the cut fenders and cutting my lugs. Not to mention that is also helped make my flimsy fenders a little stronger.
the simple tools involved
After cutting my front fenders twice because of my 33’s flexing up into them, I was ready to cut them a third time. However, thanks to Eric (OOC), I got the idea to roll them instead. Not only would I get more clearance for tires, but I would lose the sharp edge that had put some cuts into the lugs of my tires.
Let me warn you, if you want t keep your XJ looking nice, my method may not be the best. But since my fenders were already wrinkled and dented, it didn’t really matter much to me. All I ended up using was a small 2×4, pliers, hammer, and some flat black paint.
Now you have to figure out how high you want to roll them over. Once that is decided, I started out with the pliers and bent the fenders back a little, all the way around. This gave the metal a little crease that would help me pound them over the rest of the way. Then I took the small 2×4 and held it on the inside of the fender lined up with the crease. Next I hammered the fender so that it bent over the corner of the small 2×4, while following the crease I had made along the fender.
Then all I did was sand away some of the chipped paint that was caused by the fenders being bent, and shot the area with some flat black paint to prevent rusting. I’m happy with the results…..and as a bonus, the fold has helped make the fenders more rigid and not as flimsy as they were before.
Until I get a trailer of my own (hopefully very soon), I had to put my doors back on for the drive to the trails (the doors will come back off when i get to the trails).
Here’s a few pictures…
ouch…stands out more with the front door on
A few pictures of the rock lights installed and wired up and working in my driveway
They work pretty well.
I have a night run coming up next Saturday, so I decided to add some rock lights for the trip.
I went to Walmart today to pick up some cheap driving lights. These cost $14.95 per pair…can’t beat that price…..cheap to replace when i break them in the future, too. They came with everything I needed.
Finished hooking the front ones up and mounting them. They are mounted to the front crossmember pointing down, backwards and towards the tires a little. Luckily, there were 2 holes already in the crossmember that i used to mount them…so no drilling was required 
Here’s the front ones on with the garage lights off
I started mounting the rear ones and have already run most of the wires. I just need to finish them up sometime this week. These are mounted through the floor just in front of my rock rail mounts and close to the framerail.
Lately, I have been having issues when steering both on-road and off-road. It’s been very difficult to turn the wheel. I believe I have tracked down my problem to the steering box. While I was working on the steering, I also replaced the power steering pump and added a cooler.
New steering pump
New junkyard steering box
The new power steering cooler
Behind the grill
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