Best way to smooth fender bolts?

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demon34071

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I have been kicking around an ultra clean / smooth under hood engine bay and the idea of not seeing the fender bolts keeps popping into my head.

I was thinking I can simply take the fender bolts, cut the heads off and weld the studs into the fender bolt locations and nut them from below.

My question and concern is welding the bolt studs into the thin layer of fender lip in a fashion that the metal will be strong enough and not tear when the stresses of bolting them to the car takes place.

Any thoughts?
 
demon34071 said:
I have been kicking around an ultra clean / smooth under hood engine bay and the idea of not seeing the fender bolts keeps popping into my head.

I was thinking I can simply take the fender bolts, cut the heads off and weld the studs into the fender bolt locations and nut them from below.

My question and concern is welding the bolt studs into the thin layer of fender lip in a fashion that the metal will be strong enough and not tear when the stresses of bolting them to the car takes place.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

How about carriage bolts. Nice round head on the top and nuts on the bottom?
Another thing you could use would be the bolts that look like carriage bolts that have an allen head in the center so you can tighten them down. Use some body filler to fill the heads before painting. That way you could remove the filler if you ever had to removed the fender again and it would still look stock on the underside.
 
I have done this a couple of times and this is how I did it.
weld a flat washer to a cut off bolt, then tack the flat to underside of the fender lip. Then plug weld the hole that is left on the top of the lip.
Now remember that this WILL raise the fender up the thickness of the washer, and may or may not be an issue. However if it is you will have to modify the inner fender monting lip to accomodate the washer/bolt arangement to allow the fender to sit in the proper location. Sounds worse than it really is. Good luck and post some pics.
 
You also could use some flat strap metal and weld studs to it where your original bolts are. That way you could nut it from the bottom and have a slick piece of metal on the surface. Again this would be a removable part if the car was damaged and a fender had to be replaced.
 
Oklacarcollecto said:
How about carriage bolts. Nice round head on the top and nuts on the bottom?
Another thing you could use would be the bolts that look like carriage bolts that have an allen head in the center so you can tighten them down. Use some body filler to fill the heads before painting. That way you could remove the filler if you ever had to removed the fender again and it would still look stock on the underside.
Click to expand...

That's a good idea, but you still would end up with the look of bolts... I'm think smooth completely... I saw it in a thread here, but only once before, and I can't find the thread where I saw it. Go figure.
 
440abody said:
I have done this a couple of times and this is how I did it.
weld a flat washer to a cut off bolt, then tack the flat to underside of the fender lip. Then plug weld the hole that is left on the top of the lip.
Now remember that this WILL raise the fender up the thickness of the washer, and may or may not be an issue. However if it is you will have to modify the inner fender monting lip to accomodate the washer/bolt arangement to allow the fender to sit in the proper location. Sounds worse than it really is. Good luck and post some pics.
Click to expand...

This was similar to what I was thinking. But instead of washers I was going to use the body shims that you use to set the final height etc. This way not only would I achieve that smoothed look but the fender would be shimmed to its final height at the same time.....
 
Fabricate a cover, then you can remove it to get to the bolts. Saw this at a recent car show. Craig
 
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