After a nice conversation with Pika last night, I was armed with the info I needed and a sawsall.
So Xterra meet Mr.Sawsall..

Got the rear passenger side wheel well done tonight. 1 down, three more to go..
Sections that were physically chopped out, directly in front of the rear wheel, and directly behind the rear wheel.

Took roughly about an inch and a half off the front and back of the the wheel well for clearance,
and cut notches and rolled the fender lip up for an additional 1" clearance up above.
Pika actually just cut the pinch seam off, but was left with two seperate pieces of sheet metal and an area for dirt and crap to collect.
I opted to notched and hammer the living shit out of it to roll it over, to cover the gap between the two pieces.

The plastic will be trimmed off as well to match the same radius of the new wheel well.

Front part that was chopped.


Trimmed wheel well. Old wheel well opening is 34.5" across.. New one is 37" across.
I'll clean it up a little bit more and paint the exposed metal, and reattach the plastic trim like below.

Still need to trim the plastic rear corner to match..Pretty much removing the entire buldge where the mud flap attaches to.
The molding on top move up approximately 3/4". And will be attached with self-tappers.


The other side as a comparison..


Notice the nicely dented lower quarter panel from a tread delamination at 70mph.. Not pretty.


Overall.. It aint pretty, but it is very effective, and will be covered with plastic trim.
Tomorrow I'll finish up the other side. It should be a joke since I know where to cut now.
And I'll try to start on the front, might have to wait until thursday after work.
The front is going to be interesting, since I've already hammered the ever living shit out of it, now I have to cut all of that out and flatten it out again for more clearance.

Ken that's looking pretty damn good..Good luck on the rest of it..

A cutoff wheel is a lot easier to handle than the sawsall when you're not cutting a lot off; or when there isn't a lot of structural backing to what you're cutting...

nice!

I agree with you, but..
A cutoff wheel throws a lot of sparks and little shards of hot metal that end up all over you.
I tried it last time and ended up causing more harm than good.

I used my cordless sawsall with a carbide blade, then switched over to the corded sawsall after all 4 batteries were dead.
No sparks or shards of metal, just a clean, smooth cut.

You are only cutting through two thin pieces of sheel metal. I was making pie cuts, just so I could hammer it over and roll it flat.

If you look inside the rear wheel wells, there is a pretty good lip before you hit the actual wheel well. I pretty much cut and flattened that whole thing for additional clearance.

lookin' good.

That's true. I guess I've become used to it

Most of my shirts have tons of little holes from sparks burning through. My sneakers have slag holes on the tops from the welding slag, or scars on the tops of my feet from welding in flip-flops...

(After a nice conversation with Pika) . . . . . . ah how easily the young are corrupted

Gotta give credit where it's due. You're the first person to take a sawsall to get larger (ridiculous) tires on an Xterra. So, who better to get tips from than the source. lol

It took me 5 years to take a sawsall to the wheel wells.
I was due, just needed a little persuasion.

Well, I did the front when I got home today.. wow there is a lot of sheet metal that can be "safely" removed without issue.
Today's weapon of choice was the angle grinder. Wow is it dangerous. LOL
I was cutting through the fenders like butter and lighting small fires in the process. LOL

I started on the driver side rear wheel well when I broke my last sawsall blade, so it waits until tomorrow.

I should be finished with the trimming tomorrow after work, weather permitting..

I left the front trim pieces in my mom's garage, so those wont be going back on for a little while. It should cover over the gaps and clean up the metal quite nicely.

I'll take some pix tomorrow after it's finished. Yay!!
Then I have the shopping list of other crap that needs to be done.

I prefer the wiz wheel to a sawsall. For the most part, it does a cleaner job and is easier to control on sheetmetal.

Angle grinder really makes quick and messy work of trimming as well.

Scott.
Do you have a welder at your house?
If so, I need to weld up a rear bump stop extension since all of the bolts are sheered off, and the weld on my old one broke and it disappeared.

Otherwise, I'll try to do it locally.
Thanks.