Chrome Wheelarches?????

[ellis1973]

I have some bubbling on my arches and was going to grind it all back and use some anti rust chemical before painting them and sticking chrome covers on.
I was wondering if anyone has tried the chrome arches before? And if they caused any problems or did they protect the car?
Cheers
Mark

[thejpster]

I don't know what the opinion of them around here is as I'm fairly new here, but where I'm from the general assumption is a car with chrome arches is a car with rusty arches the owner is trying to hide. For that reason, I've never actually gone to see a car with chrome arches up close.

[robv12]

absoluley correct!!, even if the rust is treated and the covers the put on, any dirt and moisture will become trapped between the two causing the corrosion to come back even quicker, my advice , do the job right first time. You don't say if the car is a 40 or a 300, or front or rear arches that need attention, some are easier to rectify than others

[ellis1973]

Cheers for the replies.
My car is a 1996 X300. The rear arches are the worst (about 3" of bubbling each side) and the front are starting to bubble now too.
I see your points about trying to hide the damage. It sounds like I should sort it out and not try to hide it. I was wanting to do it myself and was more wanting to hide any painting mistakes I might make, but I suppose I will just have to practice first.

[robv12]

300 rears are the worst, they are double skinned and filled with foam, the foam gets damp and rots the arch from the insisde out, the only repair is to cut it out and start again, not cheap to do well. There are no repair panels to be had new, you can get XJ40 repair panels, but they have a different profile, I have used arches from a scrap X308 on my XJR, here's a few pics of how bad things were

http://s478.photobucket.com/albums/rr14 ... %20repair/

[ellis1973]

Thanks for the pics!
It looks like I will have to replace the arches which is way out of my diy league. Any idea how much it may cost?

[555ttg]

My 'old school' body man, here in Canada, has done this job for me several times on cars I have had over the years,(X300s). He cuts out the wheel arch from series 3 XJ front wings, which is the same profile as the rear wings on an X300, and welds them on, seamlessly. I defy anyone to tell the difference!

[robv12]

Thats and interesting take on it, use a S3 front instead of a 308 rear arch, never even thought of thst!!, only thing is that scrap 308's here are plentiful and if you are prepared to cut the wing out yourself they are often free. Cost wise, difficult to assess without seeing the job, how much needs to be done, local labour rates, etc, I use two guys, the one who is doing the XJR in the pics, he is good but OMG is he SLOW, he has had the car two years now!!!, it gets done between other jobs, my mistake I know, but it needed a huge amount of work, so this way the cost is kept down, the other guy I use is VERY good too, he did my other XJR, new wing, paint bootlid, roof and other odds and bits to match the insurance work he did on the nearside earlier in 2011, but he runs a larger and more "planned" bodyshop, the insurance work was £3K as near as damn it, my further work was circa £500, but the car looks a million dollars now

[db40]

That's excellent.

David

[XjRestorations]

Showing off some nice work there Rob
I can't really add anything to the comments above!
I do like the XJ S3 suggestion though. All S3 wings rot out on the headlamp and wing base - leaving the arch good. So lots of scrap S3 wings can be recycled

All the best,
Keith