Cheap fender eliminator alternative

[Jfundo]

I decided that before buying a fender eliminator kit, I would take a shot at a very low-cost option of just cutting down the original.  As posted in the "what did you do today" topic today, here is the result:

Pic of underside:

This requires some welding (I have a cheap harbor freight welder) and a lot of shaping and cutting with an angle grinder.  To get an idea of the depth of this, here are the leftover parts (minus a few shards of metal I'm sure):

Essentially I only modified 5 parts as shown below (the 5th is the license plate bracket fastened to the plastic piece):

The part on the top of the picture is the main arm that I cut the center section out of and welded back together, ground smooth, a little body filler and painted.  I also carved off the smaller pieces along the bottom:

 

I'm still learning to weld:

 

The piece in the middle is the a reinforcing plate that is hidden behind the plastic.  I cut off the lower bolt hole on that because it wasn't needed and would've been visible.  Probably could've entirely eliminated this part but it seems to really keep it all nice and stiff so I kept it:

 

The lower left piece is the plastic wire cover.  It just got cut down for length:

The main fender plastic, I cut as high as I cut at a place that had a clean line through it.  The key here is that the actual cut is hidden behind the license plate so it doesn't get seen.  Cutting plastic to look nice is not in my skill set.  I also scuffed up the top somehow in the process, so it is all painted black (plastic safe rattle can type)

The last piece is the license plate bracket.  I cut the ends off and bolted to the plastic through the old license plate light hole.  This can be seen in the picture above.

The final result seems nice and sturdy and I'm pretty happy with it.  Not sure I would have done anything differently if I were to do it again (other than scuffing the plastic). I'm going to run with this for a while until I get some funny looks or I get sick of it.  

 

[Heli ATP]

Good work. Are you accepting tails for modification? 😁

If you put side cases on will they hide the turn signals with the shorter tail?

[Jfundo]

I have no idea on what happens with side cases.  I don't expect to ever have any.  The width of the signals is unchanged, just moved up and towards the front, probably in the 3"-4" range. 

It really wasn't that hard, probably only took 3 or 4 hours including time staring at it trying to figure out the next step. 

[peteinpa]

Hey, good work. With my Shad 23 bags I just put on I think that would still fit between. Could just get shorter turn signals and then it would.