stone flaps or stone guard

Hi somuch2c

There are pictures of a few home made variations hereStone guard pictures, most of which have something similar commercially available. Some people with the underslung type report great success whereas other say it just collects stones and mud. We have wide mudguards (with air flow in between) and a shadecloth upright stone guard on the van and this seems to work for us - we have to change the shade cloth after a long trip on stony roads.

I hope this helps.

Motherhen

Hi Somuch,

I read on these pages some time ago, maybe 18 months or so, that someone had a set of the rocktamers (stone flaps) fitted to their tow bar.
I carried out a search but found nothing of significance.

The experience expressed was that they picked up more stones than they stopped. I thought this was very interesting.

I have seen stone deflectors made from shade cloth stretched horizontally under the draw bar of a caravan and attached with ocky strap and the inventor user reckoned it was very effective. The ocky straps allowed the turn without creating problems with one side lengthening and the other shortening. That was in a magazine I read about 2.5 years ago or there abouts. Certainly stopped all the stones hitting the caravan and bouncing back onto the vehicle, so the person said.

Outside of that I cannot help you as I have had no experience with them personally.

Cheers, Bruce.

I would go with the ones on the drawbar

I had a full width rubber one and it made the rear tyres heat up by over 20deg above normal without it.
Have heard of diffs cooking because of them

The Rocktamers hang off the hitch so may let more air through but at about $250 are a bit exxy.

I have an Adventure Offroad camper which features the Stone Stompers type stone guard (I think Stone Stompers pinched the idea from Adventure). Last trip was 11000km with around 5000km on dirt - can only say that the stone guard was FABULOUS - zero stones bouncing in to the back of the vehicle! Am looking at getting another camper soonish and can guarantee that it will be fitted with an Adventure type stone guard.

Cheers
TG

Hi somuch2c. I have the stone stomper fitted to a 120 Prado towing a Jayco Sterling 22ft van.It works brilliantly on dry dirt roads (and even tar stones) but I have yet to try it on wet dirt. I have read that they can become clogged with mud that then drags them down towards the road surface but this may be in extreme cases. I also had an issue with the Prado exhaust partially melting both the mesh and a canvas flap that goes across the back of the car. I had my exhaust pipe modified to a "droopy" prior to fitting the Stomper but it was too close to the Stomper and still caused it to heat shrink. The manufacturer has agreed to replace the melted components but owing to my slackness I have not done that yet. Hope That helps, Bob

Greetings, I agree with Motherhen, I have Rock Tamers and Shade cloth set separately. Both go on for really rocky roads, Rock Tamers always on,both have earned there keep. Fixing rock chips is MUCH more expensive in money and time to fix. Together with that nagging frustration that you knew the rocks would do damage, but didn't take any precautions.
Goodluck on your decision.
WD

I have invested in a product which I found on the internet called Protect A Tow and have found it to be extremely effective.It is a trapeze style netting arrangement that connects between the rear bumper and the leading edge of the camper/caravan.
To make it more serviceable I strengthed each edge with 100mph tape.It has worked very well protecting our offroad caravan. Easy to fit.
Worth a look

I found out the hard way about rocks bouncing of the trailer
The tailgate on my 80 series has thousands of small stone chips on it and I broke the rear window as well. I had made up some shade cloth stone deflectors however the stones tore it to pieces. I had to repaint the front of the trailer when I got home.

I acquired some Rock Tamers at a recent 4 by 4 and camping show. We will see how these go on our next trip. The Rock Tamers dolt on to the tow bar and are easy to remove or install

Cheers
Wayne

If you have a current prado (150 series) Toyota have a modified mud flap set up due to the original ones been way to short, as people have been complaining about the under bottom of the rear bumper bar copping an absolute flogging from stones. They are not doing it as a recall, its only if you ask about it or complain about the lack of original mudflap and start complaining, in some cases even having the rear bumper bar resprayed...........In saying this it wont help a great deal when your talking about rocks rebounding up into rear window and smashing it, this also would need to be addressed as a seperate issue.........

I have just made a set up out of heavy rubber that hangs from a couple of lugs on the towbar beam, and tested them on a gravelly road over Easter.
i have found the most important thing is not to let them touch the road as you are travelling as that throws up more stones that you stop. Need to allow for reduce clearance height with the camper plus suspension travel. Once i got the length right they work a treat.