Troth

looking into buying some. I have a 92' 4 door cherokee. how hard will it be to install? much trimming of the flares or is it simple? I have seen a couple of guys that have done it on here. do you like it?

Howler_GT

It all depends on which TJ flares you are thinking about.

Front TJ on front and rear TJ on rear?

Alot of guys use the fronts. I chose not to.
I used a set of rears and reversed thier mounting. Passenger's side mounted on driver's side and vice versa.

Also, you have to remember that the XJ body is curved unlike the TJ that is basically flat. So there will be some trimming of the flares.
Also, the XJ has the lower bodyline bump-out. The flare will need to be trimmed to accomodate this.
On the front you only have to do this one per flare. But on the rear you will have to do it twice.
A simple angle braket can fasten the flare and keep it tight.
EXAMPLE:



As you can see I opted to cut the front of the wheelwell even with the corner light. This lessened the difference between the curved::flat I mentioned above.


The rears...
You need to decide if you want them to be fully mounted onto the body (low) where they just miss the rear door. OR if you want to SPLIT them and mount the forward portion onto the door.
The split version will make the mounting of the flares HIGHER.

Either way, the wheelwell opening will have to be trimmed as the XJ has a raised lip that is about 1" wide.

Troth

thats awesome, thanks for the input and pics. I found online that I could buy a set 2 front and 2 rear tj flares for 99$. I would plan on using them front to front and rear to rear. Is there quite a bit of trimming? which tools did you use? Sawsall? yours looks clean, thats what I want

Howler_GT

The majority of flare trimming was up front for mine, to match up with the fenderline.
But there was considerable amount of trimming on the inside as the rear TJ flares had a wide mounting flange.

I cut it down to about 1.5-1.75 inches from the outside, all the way around.

Thank you for the compliment.
I used a good sharp set of aviation snips (tin snips). Made three cuts around the opening after removing the raised area.
Why three?
I wanted a smooth uninterupted cut around, so I could dress the edge with abit of touch-up paint and some black door-edge protector.

As for mounting.
I use 1/4" stainless nuts, bolts and washers. I opted for nylon-insert "lock-nuts". One less small piece of hardware (lock-washer) that can be lost while working your hands in there.

I also used:
Blue painters tape.
Black Sharpie marker
C-clamp style vise grips
BIG PLUS: An extra set of eyes

Troth

exelent info! im a broke college student so Im trying to decide if I wan to spend a precious 100$ on flares rite now. do you know any way to get them cheaper? If I had to trim the outside or any part that would be seen I would probably sand down the cut to look smooth and then rhino line them with texture brush