Body Panel Mounting - Hang Your Own Dirt Late Model Nose

Now the fender (or “elephant ear”) is ready to be attached. This is definitely a job for two people. Begin by sliding the fender over the lip on the end of the nose at the bottom, then drill holes and attach with pop rivets every 2 inches or so from the bottom up.

Long doesn’t use one on the right side because the car rolls over so far in the turns; but on the left, the lower valance extension is added before the fender is fitted into place.

The left-side fender goes on in the same manner.

The wider variety of body clamps you have on hand, the better off you’ll be. Here, Long uses one to hold the lower valance extension to the fender while he finishes riveting everything together.

Here’s the view from the inside. Using long-shank, exploding rivets, like you see here, will help keep the rivets from pulling out if you happen to make contact with another car on the track.

You want the upper sheetmetal portion of the fenders to be easily removable for access to the engine. Some racers prefer Dzus fasteners, but they can become a pain to get attached properly after the fenders get bent or tweaked (and they will over the course of a season). Instead, Long and Cook use bolts with large fender washers underneath.

Now that the fender is in place, it’s easy to see how it’s designed to channel air up across the fender and create downforce.

The fenders still need to be braced just in front of the wheel openings. Like the lower support, Long prefers to use spring steel for the fender braces because of its tendency to bounce back into shape after contact. The steel, however, tends to rust, so after cutting the pieces to the correct lengths, Long and Cook wrap them in shrink wrap.

Two braces are used on each side to hold the fenders at the correct width. When fitting everything up, make sure to have the wheels and tires bolted up so that you can make sure there are no interference problems when the tires are turned to full lock, both to the left and right.