new flaired rear wheel arches pics

The Volvo 480 looks good as is, but if you have the desire to give it a more personal look you can find out what others did to their 480 and be inspired.

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LIP
480 Newbie
Posts: 48
Joined: Tue Dec 16, 2008 6:06 pm

new flaired rear wheel arches pics

Post by LIP » Fri Sep 10, 2010 4:19 pm

Hi
these are some of the pics from my earlier post regarding the flaired rear wheel arches I made a couple of years ago after
the originals had rusted through. I have some other pics somewhere from when the wheel arch molds were being made, when I find them I'll add some links.
Although I'm handy with my hands & had a bit of previous experience with fibreglass & plastics I'd never made rear wheel arches before so if you're of a similar nature rest assurred it's possible to do your self with due care & attention. I think i could've done a better job in hindsight but I was handicapped from the start as my original wheel arches had already buckled & distorted slightly from the rust but unfortunately I didn't have access to a rust free arch to take a mould of so it took a bit of fiddling to get the shape right.
I also packed the arches out with filler to make them more flaired & once the shape was right i took a mold of those which is what i've put on the car & I also halved the rim thickness of the arch & have gained approxinately an extra inch on the inside space of the arch allowing wider rims to be used without tyre scrub.
With more work I could made them another 2 cms wider but that would mean fabricating a new lip for the rear bumper ends to keep everything in line & decided against it.
The new arches were bonded with resin over what was left of the arch as i only needed to cut back sightly beyond the rims to remove all the rust. I also used about half a dozen self tapping screws into some holes i'd drilled into the body work to assist in bonding & help prevent cracking & so far so good. They were also bonded on the inside of the arch with more fibreglass & resin, cleaned up & painted in the black stuff & i would say they are stronger than the originals & i never have to worry about rust again.
Here's the links to the pics & in some pics you can clearly see how much over hang i have on the original wheels & those tyres are wider than standard so they bulge over the rim quite a bit already. I did that to see if wider rims would reduce the over steer on the rear end on fast cornering & it worked, not massively but noticeable enough to make the rear end more predictable & stable.
[img=http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/1588 ... 37f.th.jpg]
[img=http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/4577 ... 37h.th.jpg]
[img=http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/2944 ... 36l.th.jpg]
[img=http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/1898 ... 5cq.th.jpg]
[img=http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/633/ ... 31w.th.jpg]
[img=http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/1153 ... 23e.th.jpg]
[img=http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/1793/w ... 012.th.jpg]
[img=http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/2149 ... 011.th.jpg]
[img=http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/8804 ... 010.th.jpg]
[img=http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/9869 ... 009.th.jpg]
[img=http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/8949/w ... 008.th.jpg]
[img=http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/2804 ... 007.th.jpg]
[img=http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/3765 ... 006.th.jpg]
[img=http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/6272 ... 005.th.jpg]
[img=http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/3784 ... 004.th.jpg]
[img=http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/3784 ... 004.th.jpg]
[img=http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/4263 ... 002.th.jpg]
[img=http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/4374 ... 001.th.jpg]
[img=http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/1447 ... 7oi.th.jpg]
[img=http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/7104 ... 7cq.th.jpg]
[img=http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/1554 ... 6jg.th.jpg]

If anyone wants more info or wants a pair made drop me a line
LIP

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