mark kibort

great pics, and shows what I needed. your ride height did not do this. the tire size and lip did this.
the damage is slightly into the fender surface and the worst part is the tear. rolling the fender and bending that broken part back could make this damage almost unnoticeble. the lip, pulled the fender down and caused that slightly impression above it too. try a wood baseball bat and be careful or have someone that is good with this kind of stuff, give you a hand. If you were closer, I could do it.

Mogans

The guy I know who is good with this stuff is about an hour's drive, not a good idea to drive the car, right? Would love to have you come over and happy to buy you a Dutch beer (or many), but even if you wanted to the vulcano in Iceland wouldn't let you! Thanks again for the help, I'll let you guys know how I do. Let me know if I'd be crazy to drive it an hour...

928autobahndreamer

When I recieved my car from the PO the front ride height was set pretty low. I measured at 135mm (the shock adjusters were screwed all the way down and no threads were visible.) It looks like at some point the tires had come in contact with the front fenders. There is just a very small dimple on mine, no tear.
The front wheels on mine also have a 52mm offset and currently have 215mm tires on them. I am guessing after the contact smaller rubber was put on.

I had no contact with the 52mm offset and the 215s at 135mm. I have since increased the ride height to 155mm (seems really high even though it is lower than stock) and have ordered some stiffer springs and will be replacing the shocks with new bilstiens. I am also looking at bigger wheels with appropriate offsets that will allow me to put more rubber up front than the currently insufficient 215s.

My biggest problem with the low ride height was the beating the spoiler and the alternator hose took. Also, the belly pans were not on the car when I got it and I am guessing were accidentally and traumatically removed.

I think your problem was probably was most likely a combination of the less than ideal offsets with your 225 tires and ride height being low as a lot of people are running wheels with 52mm or less offsets without hitting their fenders.

Good luck getting everything fixed back up.

svp928

I did the exact same thing- but my problem was self- induced by me using too big of a roller on the lip...doh!
It was easy to fix- we tig welded the crack and banged some more clearance into the fender while we were at it. Can't even tell it was worked on.. I have 265's on 10in wheels in front, so clearance was a problem for a minute or so....
You can drive it- just don't hit any bumps at full lock and you;ll be fine.

chewy8000

I run 996 wheels with 225's currently and have no issues with 8" wheels and ET50 on the fronts. I did however have to roll the fenders to stuff the 11" ET45 and 295's in the rear but man does it look mean!

Mogans runs the same wheels I'm purchasing (Keskin KT2's) which are all ET52 front and rear. The difference in offset is so close to my 996 wheels I don't see that being the problem. Were talking mm difference, I think the problem is the 8.5" wheel. Either way that sucks and more people should be aware about just stuffing wheels in without doing the math.

I plan on sending the keskins to the wheel man to get them exactly where I want and I will be rolling the front fenders. Might even have them widened to 11" in the rear.

mark kibort

You can see the tread pulled at the lip and tore it. it is fixable with a wood bat, but you need to be careful. the ride height is fine, and I wouldnt worry about driving an hour. it will only happen more if you turn and have some compression. you have a pretty high ride height actually.

JHowell37

That fender is cracked and will need to be repaired before attempting to roll it and increase the clearance. Trying to roll it will probably cause it to tear more if not repaired first.

jon928se

+928 If you try and roll that fender lip as it is it will just bend only at the damaged point forming two straight lines not the curve that is desired.

Having had 245/40/18 tyres on 18x8.5ET52 wheels on the front of my GT with no rubbing on the fender I don't think the wheel tyre combo is the problem. Get the ride height set back to about 165-170mm (Your AC compressor and alternator and their mounting points on the block will thank you) then get a decent alignment done. I suspect you don't have sufficient camber at the moment.

Mogans

Wanted to give you guys a follow up on this and thank you again for your advice. Today I "limped" the car to my mechanic, who is about an hour away from me at normal speeds. We (well, mostly him) used wooden handles to roll the lip under the fender. My job was to push the sides around the wheel well in while he worked the fender out. This seemed to allow the metal more room to move and worked great. We took a few shots at it, taking test drives inbetween, after three test drives I couldn't get it to rub even with sharp turns over bumps. Before we rolled the fender I was getting rubbing even on slow turns on a flat road, so this really made a big difference. As Mark predicted above, rolling the fender seems to have resulted in the tear becoming somewhat less noticeable. But most importantly, there is now no rubbing and there was no adjustment to the ride height. The drive home was great!

OBehave

Ouch! I hate when this happens.what i did to fix this on my track car project is wrap a section of 3/16" aluminum round stock inside the lip of the fender and roll the edge over it and it strengthens the crack and the whole fender opening.Then you can roll the fender as far out as you want to clear the tire.if your careful and use a heat gun you won't crack the rest of the paint.This worked real well on the rear fenders also made them real strong. Good luck and take your time.Patience is a virtue.

Mogans

Hi,
Just to finish this off, following are pictures of the before and after rolling. Top photo is before, lower photo is after. The result is not perfect, but it's a minor thing and not the only imperfection, so I'm happy with the outcome of no rubbing. Thanks.
Mogans