Metal Fender Round-Up
All the metal fenders I could find for the Jeep JK. This article is from about 2016 so obviously things have changed since then.
First a couple opening words about this article:
Taste is a subjective topic, and the designs I like the most might be your least favorite, conversely a feature you love might be something I suggest avoiding. I’ll be talking about design and critiquing minute details in these various offerings. If your needs, priorities, and most of all tastes are different from mine feel free to disagree.
I have split this article into two pages, this page is all metal fenders, and this one is all non-metallic fenders.
THE CONTENDERS
- Poison Spider Crusher™ Flares
- Genright Off Road
- Metalcloak
- River Raider
- Nemesis Industries
- Ace Engineering
Here is a nice video from Poison Spider explaining the difference between armor fenders and non-armor fenders.
POISON SPYDER CRUSHER™ FLARES
Perhaps the most well known name in tube fenders right now is Poison Spyder. Their fender is a top quality product and I think that out of all the companies that actually use a tube in the construction, their fenders follow the Jeep body lines the best. The curved top tube desgn makes their fender the nicest looking “tube” fender on the market.
You can also see that the rear fender flare, like the front, is not flat on top, but has a very subtle bend in it. Although subtle, I think the difference is amazing. You’ll see that some of the other venders fenders (River Raider for sure) use a completely straight tube and it doesn’t compliment the Jeep like the Poison Spider design does.
I think the radius Poison Spyder uses for the bottom ends of the fenders (the part where the tube bends back in toward the body) looks very nice too. I’m not a big fan of the fenders that just taper from the wide area on top down to nothing at the bottom. As an exemple compare the Poison Spyder’s rear flares to the front side of MetalCloak’s Overland rear flares. I think the back of the Overland is fantastic but I prefer the front of the Poison Spyder fender to the front of Metalcloak’s.
Poison Spyder uses stitch-weld construction so for me the Steel is out, but they do offer aluminum so that’s what I’ll look at. They use a .188″ OD tube for the aluminum version (compared to .120″ for steel) to help compensate for the weaker aluminum. The Crusher fenders include a concealed inner brace to connect the fender thru the outer body sheet metal to the thicker structural metal tub. They also provide a rubber liner to keep the fender from scraping the paint off of the Jeep as well as helping to provide a seal against grit and other contaminates from worker their way into the seam.
The only drawback of the Poison Spyder offering is that they come as bare metal and need to be painted or powder coated. As of 2018 Posion Spyder now offers their steel fenders in black “SpyderShell™ Armor Coat™ Armor Coat” powder coat finish or bare. The Aluminum product is only available bare. Current price for the front fenders start at a little over $500 a pair and go up from there depending on options. The Crusher series are available in three widths, narrow, standard, and extra wide, and they offer a matching inner fender kit in either solid wall or vented.
| Material | Tube Diameter | Sheet Thickness | Weld | Inner Brace | Seal or Gasket | Finishes Available |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aluminum | 1.5" | .188" | Stitch | Yes | No | Bare |
| Steel | 1.5" | .120" | Stitch | Yes | No | Bare or SpyderShell™ |
Genright
The Genright Off Road aluminum fender is very similar to the Poison Spider in construction, they both use 1.5″x.188″ tube, and they both use 1/8″ sheet on top. Both are sold only in bare aluminum. Genright’s tube also is not flat, or if it is flat, it certainly isn’t straight. The front fender has a nice radius bend bend at the back and I think the contour is unique and appealing. The fenders are available in two widths, 4″ and 6″ in both steel and aluminum.
On the downside, it doesn’t appear that Genright provides any bracing to reinforce the Jeep fender. Genright doesn’t have installation instructions on their website so I’m basing this information on this installation video which make no mention of any type of bracket. You just bolt the flare to the Jeep sheet metal. Price is $850 for the fronts and $850 for rears (as of Feb. 2024).
| Material | Tube Diameter | Sheet Thickness | Weld | Inner Brace | Seal or Gasket | Finishes Available |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aluminum | 1-½" x .188" | .120" | Stitch | Yes | Yes | Bare |
Metalcloak
Metalcloak offers three (they discontinued the Hardline series) two different series of fenders, the Overline, the very similarly named Overland. The Overline and Overland fenders both feature metal ball mounting points at the corners and the fronts have leading edge skirts with the Metalcloak logo cut into them. The Hardline series lacks the metal ball mounting points and the logo skirt, but is otherwise similar in construction and installation. The Overline and Overland fenders both have flat top tubes but they have very nice radius bends. The Hardline has a very nice long-radius bend on the top tube making its design very complimentary to the Wrangler body lines. The Overline and Hardline are available in steel only, the Overland is available in steel or aluminum. I am disappointed that the aluminum version of the Overland uses the same wall thickness tube as the steel at .120″. This makes Metalcloak the only company using anything thinner than .188″ for their aluminum fender tubing.
| Metalcloak's Overland Series | ||
| Front | Rear | |
| Base fender |  |
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| With narrow flare |  |
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| With standard flare |  |
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| With wide flare |  |
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