Measuring carefully to package the widest wheels and tires within the stock sheetmetal and wheeltubs can only take you so far. That’s because every car has one little bit of sheetmetal that’s going to work against taking advantage of all the available real estate and bringing the wheels right out to the edge of the sheetmetal: the fender lip.
It may not look like much, but that last inch or so of steel can represent some significant limitations on tire width—and maybe your driving style. Remember, tires aren’t static within the wheelwell as you drive; they’re moving up and down with the suspension and deflecting side to side in response to lateral loads. Your wide tires may fit in place as the car sits still, and maybe even under sedate street cruising, but you may quickly be gouging them against the wheel lip the first time you take a freeway entrance ramp at a little faster than recommended speed. You know that sound.
There’s a great deal of adjustment built into the Fender Roller; this is the standard position, which will work for most cars with a close-to-stock or a mildly lowered ride height.
Historically the answer to rolling the fender lip up for more clearance and less tire gouging edges has basically been “get creative.” The baseball bat between the tire and the fender is one of several infamous methods, all of which have a modest success rate and high incidence of body and paint damage. You could just cut it off, but don’t do that. Not only will it create a sharp edge that you’ll need to deburr and sand to avoid nasty cuts down the road, but you’re also removing the strength of the wheelwell. We tend to not lean against our cars, but we like to know that if we did, the fender wouldn’t flex. The good news is there’s really no need to be a Neanderthal nowadays with Eastwood’s fender roller.
It’s a straightforward concept: create a brutally simple device that will work on nearly any car to gently roll the fender lip. But it took the bunch of car guys that make up the Eastwood crew to step up and design a product that can address all of the inherent issues with fender lip rolling and render other methods pretty pointless. Even better, it’s barely an afternoon project to handle a whole car. Count on maybe 20-30 minutes per fender, so perhaps two hours if you need to handle all four wheelwells. That’s not too bad considering the benefits.
For those of you with slammed suspensions or small wheelwells, it’s as simple as reconfiguring the mounting flange to this position to gain several inches of clearance.
We love this thing and will probably use it on every project car we build. Our only warning? Once you get your hands on an Eastwood Fender Roller and finish your project you may never see it again since every one of your buddies is going to be begging to borrow it for their own cars!
