New Rear Wheel Arched Extenders

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I collected the new rear wheel arched extenders this weekend.

I will not have time to play with them for two weeks now but I can fill in some practical information gaps if your interested.

They look relativity easy to fit quickly but perhaps a lot longer to make them look part of the body. On the race car Mark has overlayed them as per the news letter picture with bolts and adhesive to keep them in place. For the race car that's fine as replacement of 'sticky out bits' may be necessary at some stage during the season.

The extensions are moulded from the original body moulds so they are supplied as true extension not just add on bits. Once the top of the arch is trimmed and cut it should be possible to cut the body away and graft in the extension and maintain the original arch curvature. This is the way I will want them fitted so it will take some time to get it right.

When fitted the extension overlays the rear clam/side panel joint so the lower front part of the extension is fitted to the rear of the side panel.

I discussed IVA criteria with Mark as I want to fit them before the IVA test, Mark believes the edges when radiused will be compliant. I challenged this because I thought the body edged should be 6mm and returned back under i.e. curled back inside. At present the outside edge is 2mm thick and intended that you cut it off at a suitable wheel diameter to suit your needs. The options would be to add GRP thickness to the trimmed edge and radius it off to suit the IVA requirement or edge it with a 6mm edging trim to comply. As I now have the body fitted I can use the centre of the wheel to test fit with double sided tape and transcribe the arc of the wheel centre on the outside of the arch to match the moulded section. Trimming off the excess true to the wheel centre will be done with a wheel hub mounted router and 6mm rounding edging cutter, that way it must be true.

In addition, as the clam joint is above the identified 'IVA Floor level' the joint will need to be finished accordingly or it will not look the part or pass the IVA test. Here again I believe some GRP thickness will allow sculpting and moulding to take place.

The price is £125 inc. vat, currently with postage if you are not collecting. The weight is low but the box to carry them would be bulky.

As an added note of experience, on the Hood I wanted to fit 17inch Granada rear alloys. The mechanical installation was straight forward but what I found was the the wheel arches on one side were 25mm different to the other, as a result one wheel fitted perfect, but the other fouled the GRP wheel arch and compared to the wheel centre the wheel arch was not mounted true centre.
The 15inch wheel does not look out of true but the gap between tyre and body possibly disguises the small but significant off centre positioning.
As a result the GRP modifications to make it all fit or the repositioning of the one wheel arch and rear body section caused me to abandon the plan and reverted back to 15inch wheels. The moral of this short tail is you will need to ensure the wheel arch extension is fitted dead true centre of the wheel to 1) make the look true with wheels that 'fill' the arch and 2) ensure any oversized rear wheels will not foul the wheel arch edge.


I have attached some pic of the 'other side view' we did not get from the news letter and a trial fitment with some brown tape. You can see the arch edge in need of final trimming and the material thickness.
The picture with the wheel in view is a standard Rover wheel.


























Enjoy.......