I've been pretty busy around the house but got some time in on the Cadillac here and there. My wheels are due here this week some time so I needed to get my front fenders finished. I'm scratching to gain every fraction of an inch in tire clearance up front. One way to gain another inch per side is to modify the wheel openings. The original design is flush along the outer surface and the sheet metal rolls inward almost a full inch to form a lip facing inward. You can see it in the picture of the left fender below.
If I cut that lip off and roll the sheet metal outward to form the lip I gain two inches of clearance total. When I cut the old lip off and started to flare the sheet metal outward I could only go about half as far as I wanted to because it was starting to distort the fender so I stopped.I formed a lip from 5/8" round tube and welded it to the opening then smoothed it out with some duraglass. I only did one so far. I didn't want to do them both at the same time in case I didn't like the look. Once I had it done, I decided to keep it so I got it primered up. The only problem is, The flat surface doesn't really fit in with the rest of the rounded body lines. I will probably round off the outer edge of the flare to soften it up a little.