Covering up after removing fender flares

[Charlie]

Well, I think I am going to be pulling off my fender flares. I am wondering though, what do you think is the best way to deal with this area:

It's not the best picture, but how would you recommend covering that up?

 

[Russ in CT]

Maybe the filler panel from a 4 door, that didn't have flares, would fit? On my '99 4 door XLT, I have a chrome plastic filler panel in that spot. I've also seen flat black plastic ones.

Not sure about your gen, or if your Q-panel is different enough not to fit, but its gotta be the closest thing to fitting, a place to start. If you had to mod it, it would still be the closest fitting thing to start with.

 

[best X]

hey ill go check my sport i have a 1996 sport its white as well ha so ill go check it out and ill get back at you

 

[patman]

1 buy a little sheet metal
2 cut out a spot around the hole
3 cut out a peice of the sheet metal the same size as the hole you cut in your explorer
4 weld the sheet metal onto your explorer
5 sand it
6 paint it

 

[Joe Dirt]

It's a larger spot than that, it isn't just a hole.

I think you'll have to either fab up a cover like the 4 doors, or use a 4 door cover panel... Not sure if it needs to be modified/shortened up

 

[Charlie]

I think I might just make it smooth with body filler, sand and paint.

 

[MONMIX]

 

[Charlie]

Uh-oh, there's pressure on me now...I'm being watched by the pro:

 

[allout]

This might be a little late but I took the fender flares off my Gen 1 Exploder and installed the chrome piece off a 4 door and it bolted right up.

 

[Charlie]

Well, I still haven't had time to finish this. I have, however started. The bottom on the drivers side was rusted out bad, and when I tried to sand it down to the bare metal when I started doing this, it all just fell out. So, using bondo and time, I have somewhat rebuilt it. I obviously still need to do more sanding/smoothing, but the day I was working on it I ran out of time/sandpaper. You can easily see from the dirt and such in all of the cracks how far it is from being smooth, but its a start. I'm pretty happy with the dogleg, since that is virtually all bondo. I was able to get it shaped pretty well, now I just need to get around to finishing these off.

Pictures...
Rear-clearly more sanding is needed still, along with a little more bondo to fill in the now smaller cracks

Dogleg-where you see the bondo, is basically all rebuilt. I was able to capture the curve pretty well through a lot of patience. Still, more smoothing and a little more bondo is needed.

The day I did this, when I was done I just hit the bottom with some black rustolem. I will also be re-doing all of the paint after all of the sanding/bondoing is done.

Hopefully by Friday I will get around to finishing this, but don't hold your breath:

I would have taken pictures during this process, except, well, if you've ever used bondo..you understand why I didn't. My camera doesn't need any body filler. It's dent free

 

[MONMIX]

that is gonna look neat.

 

[Charlie]

I haven't been able to get more work done. I park outside, and it keeps raining

 

[Donner]

Man, that's hard to do - covering the holes. Ya did good!

 

[stevenwagner06]

cut it off

haha thats what i did with my gen 1 i cut it flush hahaha thats how we role out here in vegas ha