Today's progress felt good....
Mockup of the rear fenders. I am still playing with the height, but overall I am pretty happy. I will fret over getting the stance and rake right for a few days probably....
These fenders will attach directly to the bed side panel. They are about 8" wide overall and cover about as much tire as the front fenders. They are small so I don't hit them on everything.
Another view of the rear fender. With the position of the tire and cab it ended up having a little bit of a 'bobbed' look to the bed. I'm not thrilled about that, but it is what it is at this point.
These where the blanks for the rear fenders in the forming operation. I made them both to save time in resetting the tooling.
I put my homemade press brake to work making these. The fenders where made out of 48" of material. This brake does that without any issues in 1/8" 5052-H32 aluminum which makes me very happy. I believe this press brake could form an entire body if I wanted....
After forming the long flanges I had to re-tool the brake to finish forming the fenders. This laminated tooling really pays off for that kind of stuff. In this case with the 2" long flange I had to cheat a little bit to have enough clearance. Basically I just have to use a 'dead-end' clamp bar to allow space for the flange. As I make this tooling it goes in a box for the next time...
This was the early layout of the rear fenders. I really wanted to be able to make them out of a 48" wide piece of material. These would be fairly easy to replicate in the future if I where to damage them. They where a very efficient use of sheet material, quick to fab, etc. I can change the width easy enough if I need to in the future pretty easy also.
Tomorrow I will weld up the small seams in the rear fenders and clean them up. Add in some small 1/8 mounting holes for Clecos. I want to mock everything up before I pick the final position. There is a bit of rake in the chassis which makes things look a little odd...