Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

dancam wrote:Does everyone put the tires under the trailer? Or do some stick them out like me and then have to do fenders and mudflaps?
I have run into a problem. I used plastic fenders with 3 bolts into wood and 2 into the foam. Not the strongest but just fine for being a fender. I realized i needed a set of mudflaps however to keep the canvass from getting torn up. I took a tape measure and figured 6inches long would be good. Cut up some mudflaps and clamped them on and realized that it wasnt going to help much. I would need mudflaps that go almost to the ground and the wind resistance from that would tear the bolts holding the mudflaps to the fenders through the soft fender plastic im sure and probably deform the fender a lot at highway speed and put stress on the bolts holding it to the wooden frame.

So what do you guys do for mudflaps, does the side of your foamie get torn up when you drive on gravel?...
....

• Though my trailer is of plywood, and my tires are 90% covered by large fenders, I chose to fabricate (i.e. redneck-engineered from scrap material) mudflaps to not only protect my trailer sides, but also to keep from spraying following vehicles on the highways.
• My fenders were bought for use with skinny bias ply tires, and were welded to the frame with the tires centered under them. Then, when I installed a new 3500 lb axle with brakes, the tires were no longer centered underneath the fenders, but moved to the outside edge, but still wholly covered). However, when I installed new, wider, LT tires, they stuck out about 1.5".
• Lots of vehicles use inadequate fenders, or none at all, and spray water, mud, gravel from the tires onto other vehicles. Some states prohibit this, some just don't enforce it, but I consider it a breach of "road etiquette" (lots of 4-wheel drive vehicles, and especially lifted trucks do this), and decided to extend my fenders with leftover materials, and to add mudflaps, also.
• added conveyor belt mudflaps
• then added matching conveyor belt material to cover the wrinkles on the extensions
• My fenders are very thick stamped steel, so attaching both flaps and extensions was done with #10 bolts...no backing plate required; but, if I had installed them on a plastic fender, then I would've used a fairly large plate of aluminum inside the fender, to spread-out the stress loading. The aluminum strip shown in the last photo was needed to extend past the fenders, otherwise there is no bracing.
• As to further side-wall protection (not necessary on my trailer, so far), I might recommend using diamond plate aluminum (if it gets dinged up, you could easily replace it, if screwed/bolted on), or 3M paint protective film. https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/N=5002385+8709313+8710654+8710859+8711017+8711731+8716713+8720073+8720123+3292322927&rt=rud

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  3M protective film.JPG (67.33 KiB) Viewed 1365 times

  I have this on my 165k mile HHR Panel's rear fenders; it still looks good

DaddyJeep wrote:I assume my Jeep would fit in that category Working On IT.... don't worry, I don't drive it on the road.



Anyway, back to the OP's question. Can you bolt a length of angle iron under the floor, preferably to the frame, to take the load off of the fenders?

dancam wrote:Thanks so much for the ideas guys!

working on it wrote:Very nice! Looks as if the "foamie factory" installed it.

DaddyJeep wrote:

dancam wrote:Thanks so much for the ideas guys!

That is why we are here... to share ideas and learn from each other. Looks good.