As the Starks say, “winter’s coming…”. With winter comes messy roads, so some mud flaps are in order.
Some quick templating with cardboard was the starting point:
In the Subaru community, IKEA-brand mudflaps are kind of famous. Here’s one example: http://mnsubaru.com/threads/ikea-mud-flaps.29040/
These cutting boards are cheap and make great mud flaps, and probably give your car some Swedish cred (if such a thing exists). It seems they used to come in several different colours, including BLACK, but now you can only buy them in a 2-pack of bright red and puke green. I wanted neither of those on my car.
While fruitlessly searching for these cutting boards in black, I found these $3 plastic bin lids:
They aren’t quite as flexible as the cutting boards, but they’re close. I’m not sure if they will hold up to winter and gravel abuse, but I’m willing to give it a shot. They measure about 14" wide and are quite tall. The ribs along them also make for nice cutting guides.
Remember, don’t put babies in your mud flaps:
I cut them with my Dremel, which left big melted edges on everything:
I eventually found that the easiest way to deal with these was to cut off the big chunks of melted plastic with some side cutters, then sand down the edges with my “poor man’s belt sander”:
…which is actually just a belt sander’s belt that has been cut into one long sheet. Standing on it on the floor and then moving the mudflap across it makes a nice flat edge and removes the melted plastic. Also, nice Crocs, huh?
I should also note that I wasn’t nearly as careful as I should have been while removing one of these flaps and I made a small crack in it. I’m really not sure how I managed to do this as they are actually pretty flexible (but it does raise questions on the durability of this material - time will tell). Here’s an old trick from the world of aviation - if you want to keep a crack from spreading, drill a small hole atthe end of it:
Mounting was done with factory holes, for the most part, but replacing the fasteners with a handful of these plastic things I found at the local auto parts store:
I started with one fastener, then used a level to rotate the flaps until oriented properly. The car was evenly jacked up on an even floor. Rear:
Front:
I cut these things as big as possible to start with, knowing that I can later make them smaller, but not bigger. Much too big, as it turned out:
Ugh! Also, the 2 inches I left from the ground wasn’t nearly enough. I planned on dragging these over bumps occasionally, but what I didn’t plan on was the TERRIBLE noise they would make as they hit the ground. They needed to be narrower in the rear (still full 14" width in the front for extra underbody protection) and shorter all around. I think I ended up with about 3.5" ground clearance.
I also gave them a quick sanding to take care of the shininess and give a more matte appearance.
Here’s the final result:
I really like the look of it - but time will tell for the durability. If they break it’s really no big deal ($3 each!) and now that I have the pattern, cutting new ones will take no time at all.
$12 in bin lids + $6 in mounting hardware = $18 mud flaps
UPDATE:
The concerns about durability were valid! A first taste of winter weather conditions made short work of these. The hunt for suitable and cheap material for mud flaps continues.
Some quick templating with cardboard was the starting point:
In the Subaru community, IKEA-brand mudflaps are kind of famous. Here’s one example: http://mnsubaru.com/threads/ikea-mud-flaps.29040/
These cutting boards are cheap and make great mud flaps, and probably give your car some Swedish cred (if such a thing exists). It seems they used to come in several different colours, including BLACK, but now you can only buy them in a 2-pack of bright red and puke green. I wanted neither of those on my car.
While fruitlessly searching for these cutting boards in black, I found these $3 plastic bin lids:
They aren’t quite as flexible as the cutting boards, but they’re close. I’m not sure if they will hold up to winter and gravel abuse, but I’m willing to give it a shot. They measure about 14" wide and are quite tall. The ribs along them also make for nice cutting guides.
Remember, don’t put babies in your mud flaps:
I cut them with my Dremel, which left big melted edges on everything:
I eventually found that the easiest way to deal with these was to cut off the big chunks of melted plastic with some side cutters, then sand down the edges with my “poor man’s belt sander”:
…which is actually just a belt sander’s belt that has been cut into one long sheet. Standing on it on the floor and then moving the mudflap across it makes a nice flat edge and removes the melted plastic. Also, nice Crocs, huh?
I should also note that I wasn’t nearly as careful as I should have been while removing one of these flaps and I made a small crack in it. I’m really not sure how I managed to do this as they are actually pretty flexible (but it does raise questions on the durability of this material - time will tell). Here’s an old trick from the world of aviation - if you want to keep a crack from spreading, drill a small hole atthe end of it:
Mounting was done with factory holes, for the most part, but replacing the fasteners with a handful of these plastic things I found at the local auto parts store:
I started with one fastener, then used a level to rotate the flaps until oriented properly. The car was evenly jacked up on an even floor. Rear:
Front:
I cut these things as big as possible to start with, knowing that I can later make them smaller, but not bigger. Much too big, as it turned out:
Ugh! Also, the 2 inches I left from the ground wasn’t nearly enough. I planned on dragging these over bumps occasionally, but what I didn’t plan on was the TERRIBLE noise they would make as they hit the ground. They needed to be narrower in the rear (still full 14" width in the front for extra underbody protection) and shorter all around. I think I ended up with about 3.5" ground clearance.
I also gave them a quick sanding to take care of the shininess and give a more matte appearance.
Here’s the final result:
I really like the look of it - but time will tell for the durability. If they break it’s really no big deal ($3 each!) and now that I have the pattern, cutting new ones will take no time at all.
$12 in bin lids + $6 in mounting hardware = $18 mud flaps
UPDATE:
The concerns about durability were valid! A first taste of winter weather conditions made short work of these. The hunt for suitable and cheap material for mud flaps continues.
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