New Mud Flaps

Okay guys, after some brain-storming here is the solution I came up with for installing mud flaps on my Saratoga. I really wanted to do this because I thought it would add at least a bit of protection for the undercarriage. I think it looks cool too.

Here's the parts I purchased for the kit. The clamps are sliding door stops. The reflectors are simple peel-and-stick affairs, and the flap material is light weight, rubber-backed indoor/outdoor carpet. Total cost was less than $25.

Here is a close-up of one of the clamps.

After trimming the carpet with a box cutter and steel square, and applied the stick-on reflectors. They adhered amazingly well. There is no way they will easily fall off. Notice I folded a 90-degree bend into the top edge 1/2 inch from the top. I clamped the fold into my bench vice for a few minutes to train the fold to stay.

I then trimmed off the corners a bit for a more finished look.

Next I screwed in two wood screws through the reflectors into the carpet. It dressed out the look a bit, added some insurance that the reflectors would stay in place, and added a tiny bit more weight to help the flaps hang straight down.

On my bench grinder I removed the points off of the screws. After my luck, I did not want the screws to do a Gumby-stretch into the tires.

Installation was a breeze. I used the C-channel cross member of the frame in hold the flaps. The rubber side of the carpet touches the frame and the clamps, once installed are very tightly in place. A bit of Loctite® Threadlocker might help to hold the screws in, but I did not use it so far. Total fabrication and install time was about an hour.

As an added bonus I now have four cool key-rings and allan wrenches. When you are always misplacing something because you have no short-term-memory, this is a good thing.