On many early BMW models the tyre to arch clearance is fairly minimal once you startdropping the suspension and fitting wider wheels. On this 2002 running 185.70x13 tyreson 5.5” wheels with a 30mm drop there literally wasn’t room to slide a green Rizlabetween the tyre and the arch. On more recent BMWs the problem isn’t as acute ordoesn’t occur at all because the line of the rear arch tends to follow the radius of the

wheel, but on models where the top of the arch is flatter you can soon reach the point where contactoccurs.

The plan for this 02 is to fit camber adjusters to reduce some of the negative camber brought aboutby the suspension drop, but at the moment there is nowhere for the wheel to go because of the tightfit. Enter Regal Autosport - master tuners of virtually anything with wheels on, and UK distributors ofK-Mac Suspension Adjusters, who make those aforementioned camber adjusters, which we will befitting in a follow-up feature. Regal’s Chris Stewart explained that rolling the arches would give therequired space to adjust the camber and get the wheels sitting upright again, and also allow someextra room to fit slightly wider wheels - say 6.0” wheels as used on the Alpinas.

I’ve seen banger racers rolling wheel arches by levering a scaffold pole around the tyre, but the fin-ish left a lot to be desired. To do the job properly you need a proper arch rolling tool. If you reallydon’t want anyone else touching your car or you want to make a career of arch rolling, you can buysuch a tool from Frosts for a couple of hundred quid and do it yourself, or you can let a specialistlike Regal do it.

I let Regal do it.

Underneath theArchesThe combination ofwider wheels andlowered suspension cancause arch foulingproblems.We head down to RegalAutosport inSouthampton to delveinto the dark art of ArchRolling.

Words & Pictures:John Paulding

The first step is to get the car up in the air.Rolling arches takes a lot of muscle and layingon your back working with the car on axle standsisn’t the best way to get the required leverage.Regal’s ‘Speedy’ Dan has raised the car on thechassis lift and now removes the wheel.

Before starting work on the arches it’s importantto check for any stones, mud or other debrisinside the lip. The lip has to be folded backalmost to the inside of the arch so any stones willprevent that happening.Don’t look at the cameraDan, it doesn’t look natural!

This is the arch rolling tool.A picture really isworth a thousand words. Just by looking at it youcan see it fits to the wheel studs and movesaround in an arc, rolling as it goes.

So here it is in position. Now it’s time to adjust itup and start the operation

Now you can see why he’s called ‘Speedy’.

Dan adjusts the rolling head until it is makinglight contact with the inner lip - but you can’t startrolling just yet. If you do, you stand a goodchance of cracking the paint...

The paint needs a good warm first. Dan uses ahot air gun. This is where the skill comes in. Toolittle heat and the paint cracks. Too much and thepaint blisters. No time to pose this shot, Dan hasto keep the gun moving.

Now a little more pressure and the rolling canbegin

And keep rolling back and forth adjusting thepressure as you go. It seems to take quite a timebefore anything happens...

And then it starts to goStop every so often to apply more heat, and thenroll some more...

With the top of the arch done, Dan moves thetool’s head to roll the front part of the arch. Onlythe area that the wheel will move through needsto be rolled. The more vertical parts of the lip canbe left untouched.

Once that first crease has been made thingsprogress quickly.

Until enough metal has been folded back.

Check your work and clean, prime and retouchany chips on the inner lip to prevent rust starting.

The process is repeated at the front edge of thearch....

Repeat for the other side.Replace the wheel and that’s one side done.

Regal ordered up the 02 camber adjusters fromK-Mac’s factory in Australia and at time of writingthey are probably in a container somewhere inthe South China Sea.

We’ll be back at Regal when they arrive and seehow the adjusters are fitted and set up.

At the moment the negative camber gives therear of the car a ‘knock kneed’ look and looksobviously modified. With the camber adjusted thetyre will have full contact with the road across thefull tyre width, minimising wear and giving a morenatural look to this classic, making the modifiedsuspension less obvious.

With the arches rolled there is now enough roomto adjust the camber. Although the work was car-ried out on a 2002 the same applies to any metalbodied car.

Regal keep quite a stock of K-Mac suspensionadjusters, especially for 3 and 5 Series modelsand the BMW Mini, but the ones for the 02weren’t in stock when we visited and had to beordered specially.

Contact details:

Regal AutosportUnit 72-82 Belgrave Industrial EstatePortswood SouthamptonHantsSO17 3AN

Tel: 0238 0558636www.regal-auto.co.uke-mail sales@regal-auto.co.uk

Arch rolling tools are available from FROSTwww.frost.co.ukTel: 01706 658 619