Newmar rear mud flap damaged fiberglass back bumper

[JCMack]

today upon leaving a gas station the newmar mud flap hung up on exit ramp (it was quite steep)twisted back and caused a 6 inch rip in the fiber glass by the electrical trailer plug. Has this happened to anyone else and how do I prevent this from reoccurring? Remove the flap or shorten it?
Thanks

[Mr_Mark1]

Scott, I totally agree with your post. They do seem to make sense to me just from their logic. Some people say that they 'throw-up' rocks but ours is not that low to the ground (about 4 inches off the pavement at ride level).

When I lower our coach down all the way on the stoppers, our mudflap is a fraction of a inch above the pavement.

I have noticed that our new coach has the flap just at the rear bumper so it much closer to the rear than our current.

Safe travels,
Mark

[FIRE_UP]

Gang,
I've seen numerous discussions about this "mud flap" on here. Many folks suggest removing it because of various reasons. Well, my thoughts are, 1, why do you think the factory installed them in the first place? 2, logically, they seem to be there for a reason and that is, even if you have mud/stone flaps directly behind each set of duals, there's still the large, full width one that will help deflect or stop, stones and more from exiting the back of the coach and, possibly damaging the toad.

3, I personally don't think it's an "advertising" thing. All the manufacturers advertise enough with the badging, moniquers, and more all over the outside, front and back of all their coaches. Other than a simple notification or, label of what kind of coach one is following, to me, it's no big deal. I think it's kind of classy myself but, again, it's only my opinion. One thing though, if it's ever damaged, it does cost quite a bit to replace it. I've looked my "Itasca" one up in the parts manual I have and it's not cheap. It hovers around $450 just for the polished aluminum plate. That does not include the rubber part.

I've read on here that it causes chips and problems with toad front end finishes. I'm kind of perplexed on just how that can happen. I mean, if you've got, (like we do on ours) mud flaps behind the duals which, should stop a very large percentage of stones being caught in the treads and released via centrifugal force, then, you've got another barrier, full width mud flap that is quite heavy and is not blowing in the breeze because it's so darn heavy and is hanging straight vertically at 65 mph, then it should catch any stones etc. that the dual mud flaps might miss. That's my thoughts anyway, yours may differ.
Scott

[Dale_Traveling]

Unless they are paying you to advertise, remove it.

[Dog_Trainer]

I had the same thing happen some years ago. I removed the mud flaps. Now I only have the full skirt that goes across the back.

[Mr_Mark1]

You know, we never had that happen as our mud-flap hangs from chains so it has a lot of 'swing' when needed. But, we might have not been in your situation and sorry to hear of the damage.

Safe travels,
MM.

[DSDP_Don]

Having a lot of issues lately with this web site doubling the posts.

[DSDP_Don]

Take a link out and move it up an inch or so. You don't say what year you have, so it's hard to know how/where it's mounted.

On mine, they slid the chain link u a bolt, followed by a nut. I removed the bolt, added an "eyebolt" and then used one of the locking chain links to attach.

Here is the "eyebolt" I added:



Here is the finished product:



Lastly.....yeah, throw the mud flap away because you're not careful or know how to adjust it properly.:S

[robatthelake]

first step ,get rid of the Mud Flap ,it is useless ,but apart from that it was never attached to a frame member ,but rather to some pretty weak Fibreglas !
Then it is relatively easy to repair the existing damage.