Interest for High rise(pre-runner style?) Fenders Fiberglass

[Mordachai]

hey, lil update, since I've been busy leaving tire tracks:

LOL!!






Well, today the last section of the mold has been in place curing for 2 weeks.
I very well might pull it off tomorrow, I'm really anxious to make a fender! As I'm sure you are anxious to see a finished part!














In the last little while, I've been working on the passenger fender

got the lip area prepped for making the profile, built the cup up





and ran some plaster

[Mordachai]

Then fill sand fill sand fill sand until the fingers, elbows and shoulders are sore!






and even got to shoot some primer on it. It's rough- but it all starts out that way...













lol, quoting myself:

Originally Posted by Mordachai

I do need help from the best truck forum anywhere.
Please I really need the front edge of a chevy 69-72 fender.
What I need looks like this: circled in red:


That pic is just a mirror image of my driver's fender, I need that front edge for the passenger fender( right now I have the 67-68 chevy/ 67-72 GMC style pass fender) Oh, please correct me if I have the years wrong for the different fenders. I think that 67 had no marker light, correct?

Want to be the first to get a set of these fenders?
Well I need you to help me help you, please I'm willing to pay for the piece, please let me know if you can help out. I've tried the parts boards, but I don't need a full fender, and have had a hard time finding just that piece.
I think it's kind of a waste of a good fender when all I need is that little bit.

I'm going to go ahead and mold the passenger fender as it sits now, but I won't be able to offer matching 69-72 style fenders until I can make that front edge. Meaning I need a NOS piece to work from.




Please hit me up if you can help me source that fender edge.



more pics of progress as they happen.

maybe someone here can help out? maybe you don't have the part(s) I need, but know someone who does. Maybe they aren't on the truck forum, or whatever the case may be, maybe you can help me ?. Quite a few people have said they have that part for me, yet for some reason, nobody has come through in getting the part to me.
I need a 69-72 chevy style passenger front section
and a 67-68 chevy /67-72 GMC style Drivers front section.

I've tried the parts board, but mostly what's available is good FULL fenders, where I only need that front edge, preferably from a fender that's rusted out in the arch and bottom. Kind of a shame to cut up a good useable fender, when I know there's a halfway trashed fender with what I need.

Also I've looked for patch panels- It seems that nobody make the front section by itself, maybe I have overlooked a supplier?

any ideas?







anyways, getting this stuff done one way or another...
|M|

[Mordachai]

little update:


Been working on the passenger side, making some progress
fill sand fill sand fill sand, then do it some more...




funny how the camera plays tricks on lines and angles depending on how you hold the camera. this lip really super straight- the first primer pic shows it better...


then laid down some filler primer





It's coming along, but it still needs a good bit of finish sanding, Its just 'roughed out' in 80-100 grit. Gotta bring it up alot more...
and I still need to work the inner lip, won't be long before I can start the mold


























and the first mold:

Freshly released mold

still has pva on it, cool stuff- acts as a surface barrier and release!

[Mordachai]

some washed parts



And then I wet sanded and polished the molds
the good:




the bad- got some crazing/beginning alligatoring
I'll have to fill with gelcoat, add surface barrier to cure, and then sand and polish smooth...



and the assembled mold




well, that's it for now. should be starting the pass. mold in the next few days, and also starting on pulling parts out of the driver's mold as soon as I can... well, I'm back to sanding for now...


comments? criticism? advice?

[Mordachai]

no comments, alotta views, it must really look lousy...
is it really that bad?

[jimbug]

looks good.... lets see the first fender!

[dammitmitchell]

just amazed.. it's been a long while since ive checked this thread..
just so you now... u rock.. period.....
when you doing a 73-87???? hmmmmm....
might have to throw my allowance your way...

[71blksuper4x4]

looking good bud, shouldn't be long before you will have some done.
Hey, I also seen in one of your posts on another topic, that your truck came with some lap style belts as shoulder belts, they didn't happen to be the factory shoulder harness belts did they?

[Frizzle Fry]

Nice work man!

[Mordachai]

Thanks guys.
Been working the edge and blocking it smooth. which means sore .

you mean my shoulder belts? I don't know what they were other than broken... I put some newer belt in it, pretty sure not OEM, or maybe even not GM. They have that weird T shape for the buckle.... What's a stock one look like? Still got them I think. Now if you were talkin to someone else- nevermind.

[VA72C10]

TTT for views for you. Nice work!

[Mordachai]

well, got the fender smoothed out(finally), and the mold(s) underway. I took the extra time to paint and seal the surface, a master moldmaker told me that might have been an issue with the first molds and that crazing I got. hopefully the little extra work on painting and sealing this one will yield a better mold right off the plug/model.
also fixed the little problems with the first mold(s).

just a few pics of the passenger fender before I started the mold.
nice and smooth....








Man I am so glad the block sanding and sanding and sanding and sealing/waxing is done. My shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers all need a break...

I got a coupla glass bumpers to repair, after they are fixed I'll pull a driver's side fender , but paid work first... then the 'fun' stuff.

[fun in dirt]

Dang - that looks good!

From the poll, at the top of this page, what dimensions did you go with (since 2 different ones had 11 votes)?

[Mordachai]

^ thanks.
This is 2" larger radius, so 4" wider and 2" taller - 42" from lower front to lower back, and 20.5" from that line to the top.

since I started on them, more people have voted in the poll. if all goes well with these in regards to quality and sales, I will make flared versions at some point down the road.

[Mordachai]

some progress

haven't been taking too many pictures,
ready for gelcoat:


then glassed up a bit



That section completed, stringers glassed to mold, but not fully glassed in yet:




I've got that second mold well underway, just have to finish that 2nd section(no pics yet) and make the last front section and that one will be finished.

[Mordachai]

I do need help from the best truck forum anywhere.
Please I really need the front edge of a chevy 69-72 fender.
What I need looks like this: circled in red:


That pic is just a mirror image of my driver's fender, I need that front edge for the passenger fender( right now I have the 67-68 chevy style pass fender)

I still haven't been able to get ahold of this part. Do I need to just buy a repop fender and hope that it's 'close enough'? Do I need to buy a full fender? Anyone have any ideas why I can't seem to get this piece? Does anyone make a patch panel for this area? A few people have either tried to help out and were just not able to, or said they could and just disappeared.
What gives?

got some suggestions for me?

[Mordachai]

Well, in between working on the second mold and doing a few small odd jobs here and there, I made the first glass fender, just pulled it from the mold yesterday!!!!!

Fresh out of the mold:




And then I trimmed it up and sanded down the parting lines. I used some white gelcoat that I had leftover from some repairs I made to my dad's boat awhile ago. It had kind of gummed up a bit, and was too thick to spray(I don't like thinning gelcoat - and gummed up it might not have helped anyways) So I brushed it on, not ideal, but for the first run it's ok.







and the inside of the fender




not too bad huh? Frankly I'm impressed with how strong this darn thing is. I think it weighs around 20# or so, I need to get a scale to weight it on. (BTW- does anyone know what a stock fender weighs?)

I made it with only chopped strand mat too! so when I make a 'real deal' fender with some cloth instead of the mat, it will be even stronger, and a tad lighter(CSM has a higher resin:fiber ratio than cloth)
Also, I now realize I need to build the parting lines up with more gelcoat, so when I sand down the seams, I can down to a nice gelcoat, instead of having to sand to resin/glass like I did. Nothing wrong with that per say, but I'd like to have a better surface for painting, so I'll be sure to build the gelcoat in those areas. Also I brushed it on, so up close you can see a few thin areas in the gel in the form of a brush stroke. I did have some little bubbles in the rear edge of the fender too, if you look close you can see them. I think this was also because of the old gelcoat and it was at the very edge of the lay-up.
I also laid down some of the white gel on a fiberglass plate, and it cured very slowly and then lifted in some areas when I tried to glass over it. I've taken to always doing a test with old material for just this reason.
The next one should be flawless.

I need to take my weights and stack them on the fender so you guys can see how strong they are. Unfortunately pictures don't really give you an idea of how strong they are. Somewhere somebody said something about 50# of mud being a problem, well I can guarantee that it will hold 50# of mud, that is if you can get 50#of mud to stick to it!!!


So I'm getting ready to have the second mold finished, and about to make the drivers side for the GMC and 68 chevy fender style. Since I don't have the passenger 69-72 fender front it looks like the GMC style will be the first matching pairs I can sell.

I should be able to sell them in the very near future. (August stimulus money?) I will start a list soon of who wants which style and when etc.
more soon.

[sandking]

You thought about a price tag yet?

[Mordachai]

yes, I'm working on it. I've kept track of the materials and time used to make that fender so far. I still have to finish making the inner support and bond it in the fender to provide the stock mount to the lower rear corner, I also have to bond in the front supports.

I am going to try to get it somewhere around $350-/+, but might end up around $450-/+. It will depend on the materials needed and time involved.

Also I'll be building them to order, so if you want specific materials in the way of resins and fabrics could affect the cost.

Also, these will all be top quality pieces, I simply wouldn't ship a fender with any inherent problems. These should be ready to scuff and spray, no pinholes or any patches or problems.

I will do a group buy/offering here shortly, with the GMC, 67/68 chevy style first. I say 67 and 68 chevy because the shape fits, except for 67's lacking of a sidemarker. This can easily be shaved in the glass. I will have 69-72 chevy fenders as soon as I can get a passenger front to graft in and make a mold. The more people I can get to commit, the more I can lower the price due to lower material costs when buying in bulk.

if anyone can help with sourcing that part, they can be the first to get fenders...(what a tease right?)


I've mentioned before selling different versions of the fender, for now it will be 2 versions.
The first will simply be the outer skin, that you would have to bond to the 'skeleton' or frame of your existing steel fender as others have mentioned doing. This could end up being a full bonded skin, or just a larger bonded wheel arch. How much or how little is cut/bonded would be up to you.

The second version will be like the fender I posted above, with the inner structure bonded in, allowing you to mount it to the stock mounts. This version will require you to add some bracing from the firewall/cab to the radiator support, in order to support all the weight and stress on the rad. support. Also you would have to use a different way of mounting the hood[hinge]. You could use firewall/cowl mounted hinges, I've seen a number of trucks with this done(usually lowered trucks- due to clearance of the stock hinge). or if you placed the support tubing in the 'right' spot you could fab mounts for the stock hood off of that.

As an example, the supports I made for the rad. support for my front end actually line up almost perfectly with the stock hinge location. if you were to weld a plate to the inner side of the tubing you could make a great hinge mount... see the pics below:


Something similar could be fabbed with a mount for the stock hinge.
Those are 1.5"x1.5" heavy wall tubing with some 1/4" place welded on with holes for the bolts on the rad support and the cowl. I did have to use a bfh on the cowl a bit to allow the tubing to bolt in there and have the stock cowl cover bolt over the tubing. but hey, if a bfh isn't involved, then you must be doing it wrong Seriously, I drove the truck with those for my supports for over a year with no issue whatsoever. 4 core rad,trans. cooler, oil cooler, electric fans and controls, hid ballasts, 4 lights and the battery all on the core support. Only thing holding it is those top bars, When building I intended to triangulate it to the frame, but ended up not needing to. Now if you're doing some serious wheeling, you might need to, or already have some additional support up there.

I want to make a fender that uses all factory mounts, but that will require a jig-formed piece of steel to be laminated in the mold from the upper front mount to the upper rear mount. I think it would be needed to support the weight of the radiator, battery, hood and anything else normally mounted to the inner fender, as well as the force of opening and closing the hood.

so um, yeah I've been thinking about the pricing...

Right now I'm about 2 weeks from being able to make a pass. side fender, and about 3 weeks from being able to pull Matching GMC 67-68 chevy style fenders. Yep, I'm excited to pull the first matching pair!

Oh and check this out:

8-03-2008 :Almost exactly a year from when I started this thread.(I had another thread with virtually no interest 2+ years ago)
10-2008 I started cutting on the fender
8-01-2009 have the first fender out of the mold!

^ Just thought that was kinda cool, a year later and 'just an idea' is a solid fender right in front of me!

[Mordachai]

From the very first post in the thread a year ago:

Originally Posted by Mordachai

...........................................
I'm estimating that finished fenders would be anywhere from $250-400 per fender depending on opening and flare.
Add $100 roughly for Kevlar reinforcement .................

looks like a pure guesstimate for an estimation it was pretty darn close

it will be a little higher than my estimation, but not by much.
I always seem to underestimate this kind of thing....

[Richard8971]

Mordachi, I have to give you props on this thread. Nice fiberglass work and beautiful workmanship. Keep us posted on the results.

D

[sleepertruck72]

Mordachai,
Very cool work ! I like those fenders, and I dont even have a 4x4. Do you still need the passenger side fender ? I have one here from a '72 Chevy that I could cut and send to you. Let me know

[Mordachai]

^ thanks for the kind words. PM sent....

[the_goat]

I realize this is way old but whatever came of this? Any pictures on a truck?

[JohnOstuff]

Any news on the fenders? - I'm building a Baja Tribute truck