Rear wide body on 180sx

[thetopcow]

Hey Everyone, this is my first post on Zilvia and I have a question my brother and I have stumbled on for a while. Mostly because neither of us are body guys, though i am goin to school for it.
Ok, so i am looking at getting a wide body kit for my 180sx(you know like the GTP one or B-Magjc,either way it doesnt matter).

So when you are mounting these what is the best way?(rivets and then fiberglass filler to mold it in,etc)

Also the biggest "?" of all, do you cut the stock outer portion of the wheel well off(aka the lip) and then weld in some new metal(you know so that the new wider tires dont rub when the car is lowered)? cuz i want the rims to come right out to the new wider fender wells.

thanks for any input you have it is much appreciated. the other great thing is, if this is what i should do, it will get rid of some good old Nebraskan highway salt rust.

[Basic]

You definitely have the right idea. The reason for the cutting of the fender well is to not only A) provide space to compensate for the lowered vehicle/larger &wider wheel, but also B)to seperate the outer sheet metal from the inner sheet metal so you can actually spreadbend the inner fender well easier. One guy did a nice writeup of this on a white S13 coupe he had. It was the most detailed I've seen yet. Spend some time Googling it.

[thetopcow]

thanks for the help i will difinitely google my heart out. i have been looking for this type of info for a while. if you happen to find the site PLEEEEAAAASSSEEEE post it.

[WideS13]

I just did the wide rear thing myself. Here is the thread.

http://www.zilvia.net/f/showthread.php?t=86161

It doesn't go into detail of how I did it. You can see the pictures on above thread so that I don't have to repost them here. Anyways...

I used the D-Drug over fenders which had recessed places for the rivits and also came with a gas cap peice (usless). The first thing I did was cut the first inch or so around where the inner and outer factory fender was put togher. I made small radial cuts in the outer portion so that i could fan it outwards to where it could be matched up with the new wide fender. The inner portion is malable enough that you can hammer it and get it up out of the way. You should try to get it as close to where you bent the outer part of the fender as possable because your going to want to seal the two togher again so that you don't sling water, rocks, etc. into the car. Pull off all of the inside panels from the rear seats back and use somekind of silicone, something with a little flex to it.

After all of that I fitted the over fenders on the car using lots of masking tape. Next came the Dremel tool. I drilled holes in the recessed areas and used cherry pop rivits to hold it on. The rivets by themselves is probalby not going to hold up, and some of them will get ground away during the process of molding the peices flush to the body. Your going to want to mix up some fiberglass resin and use a long paintbrush, apply it to the underside of the fender where it meets the body. Do a few layers of that to be sure its solid. You might want to even poke a few small holes from the inside so that the resin goes all the way through and has something good to anchor on. (I didn't do that though)

The last part of the process is fitting it to the body and making it look natural. Prepare yourself for a nightmare. You can start by completly grinding away the cornners where it comes over the top and back. There is going to be no way to try to mold those in without it haveing some ugly curves to it, just gring it off. To make it look natural You need to mold the front portion all the way to where the doors open. It's hard to explain way until you see it for yourself. Molding the top edge is a cakewalk. you only have to do about 3/4 in and just curve it right up to the window.

Overall, its tricky to do/explain. There is no one right way to do it. Most of it is going to depend on your budget and patence. I won't like to you, it is a huge pain in the ass if you want to go all out and make it perfect to where it wont crack. You could always do it JSpec style and just bolt it up and paint it. After doing it myslef I can understand why there are not too many people out there with it. Too much damn work. If your doing it for a shop class of yours, go for it. You'll love how badass it looks once its done.

[thetopcow]

hey basic i found that website if anyone cares to look:
http://nismokc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3483
it was really helpful.

Also for wides13 your car looks sweet, and i was wondering about the molding in process before you mentioned it in your write up, where exactly did you cut the over fender to make it easier to mold?

[FRpilot]

sweet link.. and it also linked to another thread on ziptied about installing rear overfenders on an FC. very informative. now i know how much work it will be when i put my rear over fenders on.. seems like a big pita but i have to do it.

[WideS13]

All of the area in the red box, in the thumbnail attached, is going to have to go. Otherwise it will hang over the back part and there will be no way of molding the back of the car and make it look flush. If you look at the pictures in the link above you can see the cornner peice has to go. Toss the peice that they supply to use for the fuel door and fabricate some brackets to get the spacing right.

[thetopcow]

thanks to everyone who has been posting on this thread