Cut mine with a sawzall, filled the gap with epoxy, then painted. Been that way for about six months with no issues.

 

That's a real clean job, moose. Looks like it came that way. I think some folks that do this mod don't know how important coating the metal is.

 

When do you need to worry about cutting the pinch seam. I have 35" tires and Im pretty sure it has not come in contact with it. My JK is really only used to wheel in Moab. Not a DD. That said. I am probably going with 37" pretty soon. Should I worry about it then? I have a 3.5" lift.

 

i filled the gap with some jb weld and then sanded.

 

I thought it would would be minimal rubbing when looking at it my driveway, but on the trail it rubbed over every bump.

I used the BFH approach since I was on the trail.
Still need to paint it.

 

I initially did the hammer thing; but you can only go so far in with the hammer. I painted it and still heard some noise and when I looked the paint was rubbed off. So I got fairly aggressive with the cut off wheel in my die grinder. That off course exposed some voids which I filled with JB Weld. After that dried I shot some primer and then some flat black paint on it. No contact any longer.

One other thing I had to do was cut back the plastic liner at the rear of the back fenders. When I really (and I mean REALLY) stuffed the back tires in Moab they made contact with the liner, and in fact it started tearing and bending the bottom of it forward. I cut the liner a bit above the level of the bottom of the fender. Then I cut the crease half way in and then overlapped the pieces and pulled them to the rear with a metal screw. I picked up about 2" clearance to the rear by doing that.

I got fairly agressive on both these things so the HD Mud and Snow chains I bought won't contact the fender when I run them this winter.

 

Looks great, I guess Joker, WranglerV8 and myself need to have a pinch seam/fender party