How to repair Cherokee rear flairs with PU flairs?

[ghcoe]

I did a search, but can not find any how to's on how to replace rear Cherokee flairs with Pickup flairs.

My Flairs are finally getting to a place where they need to be replaced. I picked up a couple nice flairs off of a '68 pickup a few years back. I was wondering if there is a how to write up (thread) on how to do this? Or if not can anyone give me some direction?

Thanks, George.

[Stuka]

The outside part of the flare is pretty similar between a Cherokee and a J-Truck Town Side, but the inner part is entirely different.

I know BJ's sells just flares and says they work for both Cherokee and J-Truck. And I recall one of the various WT Wagoneer conversions used J-Truck fenders. But the WT conversions were all done by seasoned body shops, so I don't know of any details outside of photos posted here as progress updates.

EDIT: Just looked at several build threads here, and all of the photos are down

[ghcoe]

No problem I was just hoping. I have heard of it being done, but never saw any details on how it was done.

When my axle came out it damaged the flair where I had repaired it with fiberglass years ago.

I guess I may have to wing it. Thinking just cut the flair at the body line. Save as much of the inner that I can. Glue in the flair and then fiberglass the inner out to the flair flange.

[tgreese]

Looking at my pickups, the flares are one piece continuous with the big cylindrical wheelhouses on the inside of the bed. Seems like it would be nearly impossible to separate them from the bed without either cutting the whole wheelhouse and the outside of the bed, or drilling through dozens of welds and partially disassembling the bed. Hard to reconcile this with the Cherokee design without having both in front of you.

Apparently the BJ's fiberglass flares are meant to be applied to the cut-away fender, as you describe. There are descriptions/instructions for these online somewhere. Gluing two steel parts that do not match exactly sounds like a failing strategy. You don't have to use the truck flares... you could consider them a sunk cost, pass them along to someone else, and use the proceeds to help buy some fiberglass repops.

[ghcoe]

Really the only difference between the pickup and Cherokee is how the inner wheel well attaches to the body. With the pickup the flair is basically mounded with the inner wheel well and welded into place. The Cherokee they basically cut the inner wheel well off at the flange on the side of the body where the pinch welds are. They then extended the wheel well out to mate up with the flange at the wheel opening. This, to me, is where they went wrong since the tight area where the inner and outer fender come together was a moisture trap.

I think that you could cut back the inner fender on the Cherokee back to the body flange, cut some relieve cuts in the inner wheel well to allow you to move the sheet metal to the flange where the flair meets the body. Attach the inner wheel well there to match the way it was done on the pickup. You would have fill the relive cut openings, but I think that would be pretty simple.

The glue I was mentioning is a glue used in modern vehicles. It replaces spot welds. I have not played with it, but I was at one point I was going to have the fenders repaired by a shop. They said they would just glue it in with this stuff. My understanding is once it sets up it will not come apart till it hits a certain temperature. That is how they get the panels apart on newer vehicles from what they were saying. It also creates a seal at the joint so you don't get moisture between the panels like you would on a pinch weld.

[threepiece]

Really the only difference between the pickup and Cherokee is how the inner wheel well attaches to the body. With the pickup the flair is basically mounded with the inner wheel well and welded into place. The Cherokee they basically cut the inner wheel well off at the flange on the side of the body where the pinch welds are. They then extended the wheel well out to mate up with the flange at the wheel opening. This, to me, is where they went wrong since the tight area where the inner and outer fender come together was a moisture trap.

Yes, contrary to what some believe, the Cherokee uses the same rear flair as the truck.

I believe the misalignment issues others have had was caused by matching the body side weld locations. The Cherokee body side panel has a slightly different shape than the trucks, especially near the bottom. I can’t remember which, but one is set farther outboard than the other.

Another issue is the right flair is slightly different than the rear. The difference is minor, careful measuring is needed to discern the difference. Hopefully you indicated your flairs.

I did this same swap more than twenty years ago. I repaired my outer wheelhouse (what you are calling “inner wheel well is actually the outer. The wheel well is made from two pieces, an inner and outer) to original configuration using the same method you describe of cutting slits to form it. This worked well. Have fun!

[ghcoe]

I did this same swap more than twenty years ago. I repaired my outer wheelhouse (what you are calling “inner wheel well is actually the outer. The wheel well is made from two pieces, an inner and outer) to original configuration using the same method you describe of cutting slits to form it. This worked well. Have fun!

Good to know thanks! I guess I may have to document this swap for future reference.

[jpswapmohn]

The flares we used on my WT waggy were from a Cherokee, but the photos may provide some assistance..
The work was done by a professional shop (Page Customs outside of Richmond VA), so I can't answer any really specific questions about the process.
http://imgbox.com/g/rNuIasKYrS

[ghcoe]

The flares we used on my WT waggy were from a Cherokee, but the photos may provide some assistance..
The work was done by a professional shop (Page Customs outside of Richmond VA), so I can't answer any really specific questions about the process.
http://imgbox.com/g/rNuIasKYrS

Thanks!