gnarly_mike

Trail Grapplers are about as true to a 37" as you can get. I know a Toyo 13.5 wide is a hair taller. Like .15" or something, I assume that's how pitbulls are. But the 12.5" wide Toyos are pretty much equal height as the trail grapplers. The difference is extremely small though, I know BFG's are basically 35" which sucks.

Mine definitely did not fit without trimming, as you can see here, the pinch seam literally touched the tire mounted at ride height.

gnarly_mike

And I believe it about the 2.5" rear and 4" front spring. There is so much got daym rake from the factory it's ridiculous. That's why I used 1.5" coil spacers to level out to my stock ass rear springs lol.

gnarly_mike

Okay I've drawn up on paint in two colors what I did to the wheel well. I don't have pictures of me doing it so you'll all have to look at what I can show you this way. Uploading here in a second.

gnarly_mike

Okay so the stuff in black is basically where I completely removed material. The yellow is where i notched the metal and folded it flat underneath the wheel wells.

I cut metal off first, as much as I could without taking away too much flat area for the flares to mount on. I did not go farther back than the little dimple in the metal in the back of the tire, because if you do, there will be a gap that you will need to fill with JB Weld or some expanding body foam or something.

On the front, I had cut a little and then drove around a week or so then cut some more. I trimmed as high upward above the hubs as possible while still having enough flat mount surface to bolt my flares to, went right up to the bolts, I will show a shot of that after this post.

After I had removed excess metal, keeping careful to not go above ALL the spot welds that join the sheets of body together and leaving the smallest flat mounting area as I was comfortable with, I then notched the remaining metal, and folded it under the wheel well flat up in there. I had to hammer it up.

Where the indentation is on the pinch seam in front of the tire, I notched what was left, folded it over, then hammered the ever living SHIT out of it until it was pushed back to just in front of my control arm bolts on the frame mounts. This was not as easy as it sounds. there is an area that was virtually impossible to manhandle back as it is where about 10 sheets of metal are all spot welded together. The hammering sounded like a gun firing and could be heard for probably 2-3 blocks, I'm pretty sure at least my whole street of neighbors came outside to see what the noise was haha. The wheel needs to be removed for that part as you might assume.

As I hammered, I made sure to do it in a way that was not just careless bashing to push metal back. I did it as you can tell to where it stayed rounded and looks stock from the side. After I hammered it looked like shit and was not smooth at all, so I smoothed over some JB Weld WeldStick over the part I hammered back, and then covered the wells with plasti-dip, as I did not yet know if I wanted to have white wheel wells or undercoat them. I need to go back and remove the plasti-dip and permanently coat it with undercoat.

I did this all with the shittybuilt flares mounted, as I had to trim them too obviously. I used a grinder and a cutoff wheel. Well about 4 wheels but you get it. I used a sawzall at first but it was too hard to shape with as I cut and as a result I couldn't make smooth rounded cuts. I stopped and used the grinder the rest of the way. I cut through the shittybuilts only at first, to my desired shape and clearance, then used them as a guide for where to do my wheel wells.

No amount of pictures or explanation can tell you guys where exactly to trim or fold or hammer without creating gaps in the body, you will have to look and feel under there to ensure you don't go too far. Doing it little by little is the best way to do this. Take your time and you wont make any mistakes that require fixing.

I am writing this on my computer. I will switch to phone to show other pictures. If there are any questions just ask.

gnarly_mike

I didn't paint the edges of the shittybuilt flares because I don't care about them. They were free brand new for me and I will eventually have PSC flares.

But you can see here the notched parts and that they're flat up against the top of the wheel wells. They don't look pretty but nobody can see it unless they stick their head in between my tire and flare and look up lol. If the tire ever rubs that it just rubs, doesn't cut into the tire. My tires never rub unless I have two passengers and the hardtop on and fully flex the rear. With no passengers it has about a centimeter of clearance above the tire between the flare with fully compressed stock bumpstop. I had a shot of that but on old phone.

gnarly_mike

Cont.

gnarly_mike

This is the part that hulk would have to smash to move back, where there's about 10 layers of metal welded together.

gnarly_mike

It's dirty. But that's what used to be the pinch seam with that indentation, this is an area where poison spider flares bolt to for extra support, but I sacrificed it as its not a main structural support for the flares. I made very sure that I would be able to mount them without that indentation, even if it just made them a little weaker. I won't be able to lay my jeep on my rear flares but I don't plan on that anyway. If that happens I'll have bigger issues.

gnarly_mike

I also folded up the part around the back corners as I mentioned earlier in the thread. This gives you a little extra room in the back if you are stretched.

gnarly_mike

Last one. In this shot you can see some white where my tire rubbed inside there, this is where the tub protrudes into the wheel well shape, I didn't want to hammer that up or it would show from the interior with the carpet out