You guys with stake beds, what have you used to hang the mudflaps?

I just searched for hangers, and found them from $20 for 3/4" square steel springs to $200 for S/S, great looking, with taillights, but I think 30.5" is about 5" too wide for my truck. My "Built Ford Tough" mudflaps are 18.5" wide.

Pictures of what you used would also be nice. Thanks in advance.

 

I hung Albatross' oversized flaps with a few lengths of 3/8" chain, bolts and metal plates. Gets them down to the required 8" ground clearance with some weight to keep them from flying around.. "Built FORD Tough" indeed.

 

Did you mount them to the bottom of the bed or to the frame?

 

I think I put pictures on here somewhere of how they're hung on Missy Green. I'll look around and see if I can find said pictures. In the mean time, there is a piece of angle iron welded between the inside longitudinal and the perimeter longitudinal bed frame members. Short pieces of chain suspend the flaps from the angle iron.
Edit:
Picture added: Here is probably the best shot of how the flaps are hung. This was when I was rebuilding the deck on MG.
Angle iron is about 1/8" x 1"

 

Bingo! From holes in the (dump) bed frame much as Missy Green's. The chains get them down to legal height because here in TX the bottoms of the flaps must be 8" or less from the ground. The flaps are huge, but, the bed's roughly 4' off of the ground. Loading dock height, you know.

 

Thanks guys. So to do it that way, I'll need to build or buy a bed. Right now Betsy has no bed to hang them from.

I didn't know about the 8"-or-less-off-the-ground rule either. I don't know what the law is in CA.

I was thinking about the ones with the brake lights, since I don't like the ones I have now. But that will have to wait, since they're so expensive.

 

Joe, if you just want to go with a temp set up, bolt a pipe or conduit across the truck frame just aft of the wheels and hang the flaps from it. Heavy clamps and chain would secure all this on a temporary basis till you got the bed. I've seen this on trucks in transport. With the high speeds you are cruising around the neighborhoods I doubt if the flaps would sail too much.

 

Texas says 8", but they give a 4" leeway, so the bottom line in Texas is...
"They will be securely mounted, as wide as the tire that being protected, not split or torn to the extent that they are ineffective, and the bottom edge of the safety guard or flap shall be no more than 12" from the surface of the roadway."


California only requires that they are the full width of the tires ...
"All vehicles must be equipped with the proper fenders, covers, flaps or splash aprons to cover the entire width of all tires and effectively minimize the spray or splash of the water or mud."
Lots of leeway there.

http://www.jonesindustrialsales.com/..._Laws_NETA.pdf


BTW, I made my own hangers by bolting angle iron to the crossbeam behind the rear axle and then bolted 'slotted' C channel to that and attached the flaps to the C channel. Before I had the bed on, I attached tail lights and flaps to a 4x4 and cable tied it to the frame rails behind the axle.

 

Excellent information, Joe.

 

What does this mean?
"Pennsylvania: All commercial vehicles or combinations used on the highways must be constructed or equipped with mudguards to bar water or other substances from being thrown by the rear wheels at tangents exceeding 22 ½° from the road."

That is a lot of leeway, isn't it?

 

That tangent angle basically states that the actual flap height is inconsequential as long as it meets a 22.5• (imaginary?) line. Hmm. No foolin'.

California's got the most of them
Boy, they got a host of them
- Zappa

 

OK. Thanks for the info guys. I think I'll rig up a temporary bar so I can attach them before I get a bed.

The high speed driving I'm doing won't make them flap, but the bouncing might break a steel bar!

I'll keep that in mind while I'm fabricating something.

 

Joe - I don't have any good photos, but my F-5 had metal outriggers welded to the frame. The flaps were connected to the outriggers via chains. Outriggers weren't anything heavy-duty.. just some angle with a triangulated support.