Help with cutting and flaring ALL wheel wells on 1964 Barracuda

[Andre68]

Hey FABO! I posted recently about performing a radius cut on my 64 cuda, helped alot some good stuff there. I thought I was ready to do that until I came across pictures of a 1964 barracuda built by oly express and it was used as a Lemons car. With that said! I actually think this barracuda is pretty awesome looking, and i would like to cut my wheel wells very similar to it, and put on larger wheels.

I hunted this car down to get as much info about it as possible and i came up on some good info. I even sent the Oly Express team a message but there last update was Feb. 2012, chances of a response?? unlikely?

For the front fenders it looks as if the went along the wheel wells "slight fender flare" with a sharpie, im sure made more of an accurate measurement and then cut it. then it seams like they lined out about an inch of theyre cut and then flared it at that 1" mark.

for the rears, it seams as if they just, measured the front and applied it to the rears but, used the wheel wells factory openings on the bottom, so in a way they just gave it more of a rounder top.

My cuda is currently stripped completely and in epoxy primer. I feel right now is the best time to do a modification like this. Problem being I do not have any suspension in the car, or wheels of course.

My question is...

Is this a mod that i can do on the veihcle at this point? OR, do i need the vehicle to have all the suspension in and the wheels I intend to use on the vehicle, with the car mocked up to the stance i would like?

Only problem i see with the second part "mock up version", im sure a larger 18x7 wheel up front will not even clear the fender at all, potentially hit the fender lip as i lower the vehicle or try to install the fender.

Im kinda thinking of just doing the cuts as I feel they where done, and basing it on the theory that they where done for a good clearance of 18" wheels.

Question 2...
How do i get such a parfect flare like they did in the photos? A fender roller from eastwood?
Dont know if that roller would give me these results...
I kinda want the flares to be bigger, I will attach a photo of a picture i found online of an examle flare. Not that big up front, but maybe 75-50% smaller.

Thanks guys!!

 

[Andre68]

I can try to upload these photos larger if it helps?

 

[Andre68]

Any idea on how to do the cut? Do I need to buy the wheel first? On that big of a tire I imagine it would hit the fender lip if I tried to mock it up.

 

[fstfish66]

get ur wheels and tires first,,if u can find another set of front fenders,,, u can cut the wheel arch,and cut the rear quarters out to match,,,,then place the front wheel well in to the rear,,,i was going to do that but couldnt bring my self to cut a rust free car /COLOR]

 

[cosgig]

Used to be they would radius the opening using a baseball bat, rolling around the bat between the tire and the wheel lip! As for the radius on the back wheel, I think 66fstfish may have the answer!! Geof

 

[Andre68]

Thanks for the replies!

So get the wheels and tires first but my question then becomes this.

So I put the suspension on. I try to put the wheel on. As I'm lowering the car back on the ground I notice the the wheel is to wide. I then can no longer lower it enough to get the cut.

Or if it's to talk and I can lower the wheel it would be hard to find where to cut because the wheel would be on the inside.

Now with the rear I know I can put that on jack stands so I can measure the center of the hub to know where to cut.

On the front though... I'm not sure to get the from under load to measure it to know where to cut?

 

[cosgig]

How about removing the fender, then lowering it over the wheel with the car sitting fully loaded? Just thinking out loud here, and are you not going to remove the fender anyway to do the welding and body work??

 

[Andre68]

See I figured I can try that, I don't know... I'll just figure it out as I go

 

[Commando66]

He's a member here but can't recall his user name. His name is Tom and you can reach him at Rocket Restorations in Shelton, WA.

 

[813Demon340]

Tallzag should be his member name.

Tom is a great guy

 

[Commando66]

Tallzag should be his member name.

Tom is a great guy

Yes, that's it!

 

[Andre68]

dude awesome! I messaged somebody from that team on facebook and got no response.

man do i love FABO!

 

[tallzag]

Yes that is the car we built. It probably isn't the best comparison because nothing is stock on that car. We previously ran a 1967 Plymouth Fury in Lemons and used most of the parts from that car on the car. Lemons has a $500 build rule but your own labor does not count, we had A LOT of labor into the car to get it built.

The rear end is the stock one out of the 67 Fury, we just welded on new spring perches, so it is quite a bit wider than stock. Since we had the rear end and were building a road race car we wanted to use the wider track. The front suspension is from a 1968 Plymouth Belvedere. It is wider than the stock A-Body suspension and we basically just grafted in the frame rails and everything. We parted one out at the shop a few years ago to restore a 1969 Road Runner A12 car but kept the entire front end. We had the 73 C-Body disc brakes on the 67 Fury and wanted to use them on the Cuda. The 73 C-Body brakes use a 12 inch by 1.25 rotor that is fantastic for road racing, we also used 4 piston Viper calipers on it (brake are also exempt from the $500 Lemons rule). Not many people know this but the Chrysler Kit Cars built in the 70's used this exact set-up, the tall C-Body spindle with a B-Body suspension. We had to do a lot of work to the other suspension pieces to make this work but it works.

Alright, back to your original question. On the back for the wheel flares we basically cut it until we reached solid metal. The car was VERY rusty and after we put the rear end in with the wheels and tires it fit pretty well. We then welded in the gap to add a little reinforcement to it so if it got hit it wouldn't go into the wheel well. On the front one of our team members is a great fabricator and had a little fun with it. He measured it out and made the flares himself, it looks good and it cleared everything.

We had a set of 18's that we used in the first race but haven't used them since. We use Dunlop Direzza's with stock 17 inch mustang rims and they worked pretty well. We had a set of 2008 (I think) wheels and a set of earlier ones. The early ones were lighter and had better clearance on the front.

Hope this helps, don't have any exact measurements for what we did, we just kind of did it and fabbed till stuff fit. Also since the width of the front and back track are quite a bit different than stock not sure how helpful it will be to you.