While mud is usually a welcome guest while off-roading, sometimes you want to keep the mud and water under control. It can spray up from the tires and soak your storage containers or items you’re carrying on a trailer. This sounds like a job for mud flaps, but most quads don’t come with mud flaps. What do you do? This post will tell you how to make ATV mud flaps.
This is the first thing we all think of. Is it possible to buy mud flaps for a quad? Sometimes. Polaris and Can-Am offer a small selection of fender flares and mud guards for their models. They’re also pretty expensive. This leaves anyone who doesn’t have those machines or can’t work these products into their budget to figure out another plan.
Let’s start with materials. Suitable DIY mud flaps material includes repurposed 18-wheeler mud flaps, new car or truck mud flaps, automotive floor mats, fender plastic, and sheet metal.
You will need to cut each of these materials down to the right size for your machine. It’s highly unlikely that any of them will be exactly the right size and/or shape, particularly considering you’ll need at least two of them.
The exact size and shape you need will depend on where you intend to put your mud flaps. Behind the wheels isn’t a good enough answer. You need to consider the shape of your ATV or UTV frame and its attached components as well as what you are trying to protect from mud and water. The flaps have to provide a reasonable block for mud and water directed from your tires to the area in question. Depending on your needs, you may need wider, longer, or shorter mud flaps. Sometimes suitable mud flaps can be pretty small.
You want to make sure whatever material you use is not flexible enough that it can flop around and either bang up your machine or still allow mud and water to fly up. Moderately flexible to rigid would be a good firmness to aim for.
You will need to attach your mud flaps to existing ATV components or add mounting materials to attach them to. These could be made from metal bars, PVC tubing, or whatever else you can get creative with.
If you go with metal, make sure it is in a place where you and others aren’t likely to come into contact with it or that the edges have been rounded. If you don’t, someone could get seriously hurt by the sharp edges.
If you’re planning to make your homemade ATV mud flaps look super cool, such as with a character mud flap or expensive material, you could always try your mud flap design out with a cheaper material so you can make sure you have the shape and size right before you cut into something you value more.
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