Mud flaps "skirt"

Hi Barnesy
i read some where that it should be about 75mm from the ground to the bottom of the flap, i will have a look later and see if i can find the site that i read it on.

I am also thinking of making one for my Patrol but am not sure on a design, if possible can you point me in the right direction as to a design.

Cheer's

Kev

I think 75mm is a bit low. I guess you need them low enough to stop rocks being thrown- but high enough for them not to scrape, especially on uneven terrain. I reckon 150 - 200mm would be close to the mark.

I would leave around 100mm when fully loaded.

I found that about 200mm was about right but even that will hit the centre on dirt tracks when going through bumps and ditches.

Barnesy,
What ever height you come up with, take into account the hump in the middle of dirt roads/tracks. I did outback Qld a couple of years ago and fininshed up having to trim excess off mid trip to combat the road hump. Every time we stopped overnight i had to clean out kilos of stones/rocks from the front of the C/T.
Cheers,
Bros.

When I made one, I left a gap of about 400mm in the centre. So I had two separate flaps of about 600mm width each. They were bolted (stainless steel bolts) to 50 x25 RHS. I used very large washers on the bolts to support the rubber, and put the bolts about 60 to 70mm apart.

It joined to the 4B with two D shackles on each side. I had a couple of handy supports on my rear protection bars that I could drill a hole through.

It worked well, and covered 16,00 KM on our Kimberley trip, including 6,000 KM off the bitumen. But I recently cut some of the rubber off to make a replacement mud flap, so it is out of commission. Toyota wanted $105 for one rear mud flap. Yeh, right. I made one for 'nothing' from the rubber I had.

Hi

Make sure you have your trailer loaded and attached as the back will most likely be quite a bit lower.

Agree to leave a gap in the middle, will stop the flaps catching on middle rocks and will also reduce drag and so improve fule consumption.

Finally, need to careful with the type of rubber you use. I used what i thought was heavy enough but that was in Victoria in the winter. it was too soft in the hot weather in Qld. Swopped it for some very thick rubber but this actually caused more problems with stones. They hit the hard rubber, bounced onto the road then back up onto the trailer. Finally got some that was intermediate and its OK but be perpared to reploace it as it will inevitably get dragged onto rocks etc somewhere along the way.

good luck

I have been towing a camper all over the place for the last 10 years or so and don't see the need for a full width mudflap.

There is a theory that they actually create a low pressure area behind the flap which lifts small rocks etc. up into the path of the trailer. This made sense to me when I first heard it and I tend to accept at least the theory of it. The other thing I figured is that it is just more weight to carry and I don't need any more of that.

Someone in a thread here suggested that 2c is no longer legal tender but I still reckon that's what my advice is worth.

Duncs