Sabre
Overlanding Nurse
I made a set of 4 mud flaps and installed them today. I've wanted to for a while and this last trip to Montana provided some additional incentive with lots of sharp gravel being thrown up from the tires. I wanted them longish and very flexible, similar to what European rallye cars use.
My locally-owned, amazing hardware store (which has pretty much anything anyone needs) has rolls of 1/4 inch neoprene that seem perfect for this application: heavy, tough & flexible. Since my Gen III has had all the plastic cladding & trim removed and serious bobs done to the bumpers, it required some fiddling.
When I did that trim project I covered the lower bits in Monstaliner (covered elsewhere in my build thread), and had to reconfigure the metal hardware that supports the inner fender liners, cutting and welding these pieces to a new curve that doesn't hang down below the truck. In the rear I tied into these supports but added stiffeners to them. This is the left rear, showing the previously-reconfigured metal support with a new stiffener tying it to the body...
...and here's the right rear, with a new support tying it to the metal guard under the rear HVAC unit:
The fronts don't have supports that wide, so I fabbed up metal sheets that sandwich the rubber flap and support it on the inboard end. Here's a view looking down at this arrangement from inside the driver's side front wheel well:
And here's the final result (on the passenger side):
My locally-owned, amazing hardware store (which has pretty much anything anyone needs) has rolls of 1/4 inch neoprene that seem perfect for this application: heavy, tough & flexible. Since my Gen III has had all the plastic cladding & trim removed and serious bobs done to the bumpers, it required some fiddling.
When I did that trim project I covered the lower bits in Monstaliner (covered elsewhere in my build thread), and had to reconfigure the metal hardware that supports the inner fender liners, cutting and welding these pieces to a new curve that doesn't hang down below the truck. In the rear I tied into these supports but added stiffeners to them. This is the left rear, showing the previously-reconfigured metal support with a new stiffener tying it to the body...
...and here's the right rear, with a new support tying it to the metal guard under the rear HVAC unit:
The fronts don't have supports that wide, so I fabbed up metal sheets that sandwich the rubber flap and support it on the inboard end. Here's a view looking down at this arrangement from inside the driver's side front wheel well:
And here's the final result (on the passenger side):
