As I discovered at the start of the snowy season, $18 Ikea mud flaps don’t hold up to cold and gravel:
I set out to re-make them in something a bit more durable.
Since really cheap plastic didn’t seem to hold up (who knew?), this time I went a bit overboard with my choice of material. Essentially it’s still PVC plastic, but instead of being thin and translucent, it’s a more natural opaque and 1/8" thick. I found it at a specialty plastics shop, cut to order.
This stuff wouldn’t be easy to cut with a Dremel, so my absolutely terrible Black & Decker jigsaw was called into service.
Remaking them was a snap since all the difficult work was in figuring out the size and shape, already done with the first flaps I made. Luckily there was just enough of them left to get an outline and to perfectly copy the mounting holes:
I decided to go a bit smaller in every dimension, as this thicker material won’t have the flexibility to deal with contacting the ground.
Testing them out showed two problems with the thicker material. Problem one was that the rigidity of this stuff meant that it was fighting itself to stay in the curved shape of the wheel well, and would sometimes pull out the fastener. The solution was to heat it up with a heat gun and clamp it on a tire to cool, thus giving it a permanent, stress-free curvature.
Problem two was that it rubbed on the tire at full lock. You can see here the marks in the plastic, and the line I cut along to give more tire clearance.
And that’s it! Version 2 of my homemade mud flaps. Hopefully there won’t be a version 3, but time will tell.
Cost breakdown:
$40 - ~10sqft 1/8" textured PVC sheet
$6 - plastic fasteners from version 1 mud flaps
==$46
I set out to re-make them in something a bit more durable.
Since really cheap plastic didn’t seem to hold up (who knew?), this time I went a bit overboard with my choice of material. Essentially it’s still PVC plastic, but instead of being thin and translucent, it’s a more natural opaque and 1/8" thick. I found it at a specialty plastics shop, cut to order.
This stuff wouldn’t be easy to cut with a Dremel, so my absolutely terrible Black & Decker jigsaw was called into service.
Remaking them was a snap since all the difficult work was in figuring out the size and shape, already done with the first flaps I made. Luckily there was just enough of them left to get an outline and to perfectly copy the mounting holes:
I decided to go a bit smaller in every dimension, as this thicker material won’t have the flexibility to deal with contacting the ground.
Testing them out showed two problems with the thicker material. Problem one was that the rigidity of this stuff meant that it was fighting itself to stay in the curved shape of the wheel well, and would sometimes pull out the fastener. The solution was to heat it up with a heat gun and clamp it on a tire to cool, thus giving it a permanent, stress-free curvature.
Problem two was that it rubbed on the tire at full lock. You can see here the marks in the plastic, and the line I cut along to give more tire clearance.
And that’s it! Version 2 of my homemade mud flaps. Hopefully there won’t be a version 3, but time will tell.
Cost breakdown:
$40 - ~10sqft 1/8" textured PVC sheet
$6 - plastic fasteners from version 1 mud flaps
==$46
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