i'm got a (hopefully) small issue wth my body. I was told that the bow of the fender is not a problem with the fender, but rather a sign that some idiot jacked up the car under the fender without being under one of the jacking points.

I'm getting the supplies together to paint my car, but I don't want to paint it until I can get this fixed.


has anybody ever had to have this done, and how much should it cost to have done? Or.. even better... is tehre some way for me to correct the problem myself?

I'm not interested in having it painted by anybody but me, but I don't mind paying somebody for frame work (or whatever is needed)

 

Take the GFX off and straighten the tab out were the fender bolts to the body. Its probably bent down, just take the GFX off on the driver-side and compare both sides.

Worked for me on one of my old irocs.

 

you can try to adjust the fender, there are bolts that you can loosen in the door jam and adjust the panel

 

I found this old thread.. what do you think about the advice to use a floor jack to bend the metal in the opposite direction?

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/body...pot-cause.html

 

seems to make sense, but id use the vice grips just because i think you would be able to get it closer to the way it is supposed to be

i have this exact problem on my passenger side too, and that looks to be exactly what happened, the metal right under the gfx is all flat like someone had been using a jack there, ive been wondering why my fender is bowed out on that side, its been bothering me a lot actually, i was afraid the car had been in a bad wreck and i wasnt told about it. im going to tackle that with some vice grips tomorrow

 

All you need to do is to get the hem flange (the base weld down there) pointed back at the ground, probably most of the way down both sides of the body. Unbolt the 13mm bolt down at the bottom of the fender, straighten both the fender tab and the hem flange, and push in on the middle of the fender a bit as you pull the bottom down. Should come right back into shape. You may need to pull on the metal inside the crack of the door with the door open as well to help things line up again.

 

thanks! I'm looking forward to trying that. do I need to remove the ground effects from the fender?

 

You will probably end up removing the GFX because if the lower fender bolt attachment is as bad as mine was, the bolt head is practically pushed up behind the lower sheet metal of the fender, and it's going to take some creative thinking and to get it out to where you can get either a pair of flange pliers or just plain jane locking pliers on it to bend it back down where it belongs.

 

jeez i am having the same problem with my kARR on the same side

did you get it fixed ?

 

Christ I've got the exact same problem on the passenger side of mine too, though I can't say for sure if the metal underneath is the issue as I haven't looked. Been there since I bought the car 12 years ago, and has bothered the living **** out of me the whole time.

Exact same, door 1/4-3/8" in from the fender, front of fender flush with GFX, back of fender pulled just slightly away from the GFX.

 

Both side were like that on my car. I just took a metal bar and a hammer and bent the tab on the undercarriage back over. It fixed them from bowing out.

Now my problem is that there isn't enough of a gap in between the drivers door and the fender so the bottom graphic and bottom part of the door rubs on the fender when you open the door

 

Just bend the flange back down guys. You don't need to remove anything. You don't need to shim the fender or adjust the door. Be careful while bending the flange as the paint will flake off the flange area. If you can get something under the entire bent flange, it's best to bend it back down all at once. I used a 2x4 on one that wasn't too bad years ago. Just go slow.

 

I have also used a piece of 2x4 and a BFH on my 2002 Camaro for this exact same issue. Works perfectly. Just place the board on the bent lip and give it a few whacks, the fender will go right back in position.

 

i haven't fixed mine yet.. been too busy wokring on the impala, but it's on my "to do" list. thanks for all the tips from people that have fixed it

 

My 90 & 92 both arrived to me w/ this same fender bend.. Going to use the 2x4 method when I get to it..

 

jeez...I guess no one knows how to jack up a car these days....I have the same issue.

I plan to try and fix mine tomorrow or Tuesday and I'll take some pics for you guys when I do.

 

on my bros 4th gen it says "do not jack here" and some1 jacked there.... lol

 

Had the same problem so I used some vise grips to bend the tab back down and beat the crap out of the area.

 

So is that little black notch what you plulled back? Did you pull off the corner of the wheel well to get it or did you do it from underneath?

 

Darth, on Evil's pic, the 10 mm (head) bolt helps control the in and out at the front of the fender. You may be able to loosen that bolt and move the front part of the fender in and get the clearance you need.

87 IROC, the bolt most of us are referring to is the 13 mm(head) bolt under the car. It should be parallel with the ground but usually gets jacked on and folded under. If you look under the car just in front of the door you should find it. I believe I got a pic somewhere if you need it.

 

Yeah I'm not seeing it...could you post a pic please?

 

 

Sorry it looks rough, going to do the underside this winter. Had to much fun to let it sit.

 

That's what causes that? Is from jacking it up wrong i was wondering how i got a bulge like that.

 

Speed bumps will do it as well.

 

Now When going to drop off mail im going to go like 2mph over speed bumps haha. What about railroad track's or potholes?

 

Happened to mine as well at a shop who happened to jack it up wrong. They paid to have it fixed at a body shop since it caused my driver side door to rub against the fender when opening and closing. They had to repaint the door and such. cost the shop about $700-$800 to fix.

 

So you just pull down that whole ledge with the bolt in it and it fixes it? I'm sorry if you are getting frustrated.

 

yep pot holes can cause that as well especially on Boston roads

 

That's pretty much it. Straighten it all out as much as possible then you may need to persuade the fender back a little more. May be able to just push a little on the back edge of it to get that little extra. I have taken the bolt out and bent the rocker flange back after getting it where I could get the bolt out. You may want to loosen the screws in the door jamb for the rocker molding if they look like they have slid. Can't remember anything else but that should get your fender looking better other than if you could get a slide hammer. I've used them with a straight end then slammed the hammer forward to drive the fender back in a little. Rattle can a little after or whatever you want to use. Gotta stop that rust.

No problem at all. Only thing is that pic reminds me I need to get the underside finished. LOL Glad to help any time I can.

 

The black tab was actually busted in half because that whole area was so folded up. You just have to bend everything back into it's place and it should get the bow out of the fender no problem. Yes I did take the plastic inner fender out because there was so much damage and I had to get to it. If that bottom part that has the bolt is just folded over, you can probably get it straightened out without even jacking the car up.

 

ok, 4 months after I started this thread, I finally got to working on it. It's worse than the examples given in this thread, it looks like somebody tried jacking the car from the bottem edge of the fender, and it pushed the whole thing up. I would say it's at least an inch higher than it's supposed to be.

I think I've figured out how to use a floor jack to bend everything back where it's supposed to be, but that's a project for another day.

I'll take pictues and update this thread when I get it done

 

I'm gonna pull of my gfx on monday because when I tried to do it I couldn't go all the way because the gfx got in the way. When I first started yanking there was so much sand in there.

 

Like everybody else I had the same problem. Just came in from fixing my bow fenders. Actually is very easy to do. Just follow the information that has been provided and you will see results. I still need to do more work on my pass side but that can way for another day. Now that I have the drivers side done I have to fix the door from sagging. Fix one thing and find another. That what makes this cars so much fun.

 

It turns out that my actual fender is bent (there is a crinkle in the fender proving my point). Should I try coaxing it back to straight with a hammer or just get a new one? Won't be painting for a while.

 

It depends on how bad the crease is, but I'm in the middle of a repaint, and just decided to replace mine

 

My camera recently took a crap on me so I'll have to take a picture for yas later.

 

well I fixed the problem. I took the car apart to paint it, and decided just just get a replacement fender instead of trying to fix the one I had. I'm glad I did, it was pretty mangled down there. It would have been pretty difficult or impossible to fix this without taking it off the car, so as long as I was repainting, time for a new fender

 

Wow that is bad

 

my z28 i just got has the same thing where some idiot jacked it up wrong... ON BOTH sides to!!!!!! but only the passenger side has the gap....

 

thats nothing. my passengerside fender on my 86 was bent up so far, the mounting tab under the car, the fender half, tore off. the lower part of the fender was bent horizontal behind the GFX. Whatever ****tard jacked it up must have put the jack completely on the fender and missed everything else....

 

my last 2 camaros had the same issue, lucked out on the TA thought. seems like a pretty common oops when previous owners/shops don't pay attention to jack placement

 

Bumping this.

Both of my pinch welds are mangled; the passenger side bows out like everyone else's, but the driver's side is more or less OK.

Here's the kicker--I was at the dealer having the suspension looked at, and I went out to look at it to find that even the damn GM dealer jacks the cars on the pinch welds. It's absolutely mind-boggling why anyone would ever, ever jack the car on that crappy, flimsy weld. Jack it up on the damn frame for Christ's sake! It's 4 inches away! The dealer before that jacked it up on the frame, only because the pinch welds were bent otherwise he was planning on doing the same! To make matters worse, the guy that jacked it by the mangled pinch welds actually partially had it jacked by the ground effect because the weld was so bent that the jack pad couldn't reach it!

So now I know that every single time I ever have the car in somewhere, I am going to have to tell them to jack it by the frame, and ask to supervise while they jack it. Unbelievable. I thought it was kind of a given that people jacked cars by the frame, particularly certified service people. What the ****.

 

Both sides of mine had the same issue. When I took the fenders off I had to bend them down as best as possible and they both broke off to some extent. I fabbed new ones and welded them in. That was really the only way.

 

So, I'm at the dealer right now. I had new tires put on this morning and am now having my idler arm put in and having it aligned. They've got it jacked on the frame as requested, and I've got a great tech; we were underneath looking at the car and I said thanks for jacking it up by the frame and not the mangled pinch welds since the passenger fender was all bowed out, he was aware of the mangled pinch weld issue that plagues these cars so he quickly grabbed a vice grips and pulled both back into place in about 2 minutes. I watched the fenders literally move back into place which was excellent. Turns out what I thought was a small issue with the leading edge of the driver's door actually turned out to be from the pinch weld being bent inwards (which I haven't seen before), pulling the fender in slighty and causing my door to rub slighty...not anymore.

Excellent.

 

In college, we were "taught" to lift on cars from the pinch seams. Alot of car lifts pads have a grove to set the pinch seam in to allow jacking without it folding. But that's for true unibody cars. Ours have sub frames and pinch seams weren't engineered to lift from. Its all these idiot techs that can no longer think for themselves or use common sense , that are causing all the problems.

 

Pepboys did this to my car back in the late 80s, fixed it.Then again at a goodyear store in the mid 90s.That time not only the front pinch welds, but also the rear points, slighty leaving a crease on the floor boards right where your feet are in the back seats...fixed it again!

No more lifts for me.Ever since then i take the wheels off the car.

 

I certainly hope you understand how lucky you are not to have to replace/weld/fabricate new ones.

 

I may have to in the future...they aren't perfect, but the fenders definitely line up better than before and he got the pinch welds pretty straight...in reality it'll need professional bodywork in the future to be perfect.

I was cringing a bit watching him pull those welds, hoping the metal wouldn't snap off though.

 

i have the same problem on both front and 1 rear..... it drives me insane! ive been thinking of straightening up and welding some new metal to the car and hoping it makes it stiffer incase some jacks up my car by accident.