Wheel arch rolling for tyre clearance

[JOEPRO]

Subject car:

My S600 with S65 AMG replica wheels



On B roads there is a scrubbing noise on bumps at the rear only.

Sticking my phone in I can see this:



The white is an epoxy primer. And the outside upper roll of wheel arch.

There is a plastic fender liner too which is also lightly scuffed but I can cut that or may get away with it anyway.

I have ordered a wheel arch roller from ebay.

My plan is to warm up the paint / arch as much as I dare with a heat gun and start gently pressing and rolling the arch out pretty much as far as I can get it. Aka if I can tell it has moved by 3 or 4mm I would be happy.

Any tips or suggestions for this please? Has anyone here done this before?

I haven't. Appears simple concept I just hope I can actually move it just enough to clear the tyre. Only the rears on the outer lip and it seems like the witness marks are showing its rubbing on the inside face of the outer arch and not below it which is promising.

 

[JOEPRO]

It was one of these I bought. It bolts to the hub and adjusts a roller wheel which presses on the arch

 

[atomant48]

Watching with interest. Never done it but it’s on my list for the mazda as I want to put (massive ) 16” wheels on it.

 

[stuvy]

It was one of these I bought. It bolts to the hub and adjusts a roller wheel which presses on the arch

View attachment 395062

Used to use one of these as a lad putting 18”s under fiestas

Make a datum line on the body and use this the measure to make it the same both sides

Warm the paint up about 180mm from the area as youl be amazed where it wants to crack

The axle on a stand so it can’t move and very very slowly 1/4 winds at a time roll from side to side

 

[colnerov]

Hi, Another way is to put a length of scaffold pipe between the tyre and the arch and gently push the car backwards and forwards and the pipe rolls around the arch. I've not done it myself but it's the same principle and of course cheaper, not to be sneezed at in these times.

Colin

 

[stuvy]

Hi, Another way is to put a length of scaffold pipe between the tyre and the arch and gently push the car backwards and forwards and the pipe rolls around the arch. I've not done it myself but it's the same principle and of course cheaper, not to be sneezed at in these times.

Colin

My mates brother tore his arch doing it that way

We did laugh as you can imagine

 

[Turbo]

I would imagine that you'll need the hub in its normal position with suspension under load in order to roll the required section of wheel arch, if its hanging down it probably won't work.

 

[Bullet2012]

Or just put the correct wheel/tyres back on.

 

[ChrisBailey]

I was watching the juicebox4u videos n youtube. They were doing the arches on a ae86. Rolling the arches can cause them to rot out faster due to making gaps between spot welds and sealant.
They cut the arches out and fabricated bigger ones. Irish weather is murder on cars.

 

[JOEPRO]

Or just put the correct wheel/tyres back on.

A: S600 wheels don't grow on trees
B: This car very much benefits from the wider stickier tyres so it's a safety issue.
C: Don't point out the obvious ffs that's not in the spirit of asking this question.

 

[Agroshield]

I would imagine that you'll need the hub in its normal position with suspension under load in order to roll the required section of wheel arch...

Thinking about it, you would want the centre of rotation of the wheel to be at the centre of the arch radius.

Is that necessarily true with the hub in its normal position? It would probably be worth doing some sort of measurement as a sanity check. A piece of string held at the hub centre would allow you to sweep the arch to see if the centres coincide.

 

[JOEPRO]

Thinking about it, you would want the centre of rotation of the wheel to be at the centre of the arch radius.

Is that necessarily true with the hub in its normal position? It would probably be worth doing some sort of measurement as a sanity check. A piece of string held at the hub centre would allow you to sweep the arch to see if the centres coincide.

Yes I can jack up the control arm to find a good spot to use the roller.

Also this car does not have suspension springs. They are electro hydraulic suspension struts. (Correct name is ABC suspension)

I have MB Star dealer software so I can also manually raise and lower the car.

 

[JOEPRO]

I was watching the juicebox4u videos n youtube. They were doing the arches on a ae86. Rolling the arches can cause them to rot out faster due to making gaps between spot welds and sealant.
They cut the arches out and fabricated bigger ones. Irish weather is murder on cars.

Yes good point.

What I intend to do here is after I have hopefully created enough clearance and verified by road testing that the rubbing is gone I will go back in and treat the inner arches.

I will wire wheel them clean on the back side and apply a zinc rich primer. Then I will fully seam seal the arch lip so there is no gap left for water or dirt to get into and fester. Then I'll get a spare set of plastic arch liners and modify them if I have to.

This particular car is a modern classic so it doesn't get driven during wet salty winter periods anyway and will be regularly inspected, maintained and waxoyled. Covers only a few hundred miles a year too.

 

[Robotstar5]

You're doing it with a bit more finesse than my mate did on his Sunbeam ti, he just hammered the folded return back with a club hammer when his rear tyres rubbed on full compression.

 

[Erie Fred]

It was one of these I bought. It bolts to the hub and adjusts a roller wheel which presses on the arch

View attachment 395062

What gear do you put it in ?

 

[Erie Fred]

I would imagine that you'll need the hub in its normal position with suspension under load in order to roll the required section of wheel arch, if its hanging down it probably won't work.

So you jack up the car under the axle, should do the trick.
Not under the frame/body.

 

[optima21]

if it was me, I'd cut the inner and outer lips off the arches and seam weld them together

 

[Hopefuldave]

We did my mate's Cortina Mk1 with a jack and a piece of inch ply, just pushed the arch outwards - cars were so much simpler then...

Dave H. (the other one)

 

[Ruffian]

We used to get the paint warm, with the car jacked up. Then place a small pile of magazines around the tyre and let the jack off.

The arch folds around under pressure and give a nice consistent flare.

 

[JOEPRO]

Forgot to post this update here

Still waiting on the arch roller. I think the ebay seller is messing me around so I bought a second one from Amazon today for delivery tomorrow to get this rolling. (Litterally)

I took one wheel off this evening. And inspected the arch and made some adjustments.

This is a common rot point on these cars. This flat flange. On both my w220s I had to refabricate this. And I may have made it too large. Didn't matter on my S430 but it was rubbing on my 600:

View attachment 395824

View attachment 395825

Air saw was great for this task

View attachment 395826

Then I noticed the inner arch flange was uneven due to past rust.

View attachment 395827

I decided to use my air cut off wheel and trim off some of the inner arch to make this a shorter even area to roll back.

View attachment 395828

Given this was also the area rubbed back to bare metal it was also good to cut it off. So when I do fold this smaller flange back now all being well there is less material left there to clash with the tyre.

I did also wire wheel out the gap within this arch roll. There was large solid lumps of body sealer etc so it was a good job I did or the arch would not have rolled very well! Or it would have began pressing on the outer arch.

So tomorrow night I will heat this up and try the roller if amazon come through.

Once both sides are done to this stage I will leave the plastic inner arch liners off for now and road test the car. Only when I know the rubbing is gone (fingers crossed) will I refit the liners and waxoyl etc. If the liners rub after then ill know it is them and they will need trimmed.

The roller should be there by the time I get home from work and I'll set about trying to roll the first rear arch!