Mailbu Flap Photos

[martinarcher]

Email from G.F. today was...

Quote....

Your loooong package arrived :^)

[Bill_AirJunky]

Yea, not a lot of room in there for screws & bolts.

So Pete, you thinking about mounting them to the frame underneath somehow?

Edited March 24, 2011 by Bill_AirJunky

[old skool malibu]

I dont want to steal martinarchers thunder but I could not wait to install the new mud flaps on the truck.

Here is the before and after photos - Everyone needs to post the installed flaps.

Now the after Nice

Once again thanks for the GB and all of you effort

B

C28 - would like to see the view looking back on the flaps. I was going to trim mine and mount them on my 2x2' aluminum bar that is mounted on the top of my hitch. I think I would need to trim about 6" off but it appears you were able to mount them higher up. Do you have some bracing running vertical to support the flap above the bar?

[85 Barefoot]

Cool flap..glad malibu got spelled right on them at least.......

[my malibu]

Before I found the rock tamer mount I went to a 4 by 4 shop and they quoted me 40 dollars to bend a one inch quarter wall pipe like the rock tamer design

Was going to weld it onto the hitch and mount the flaps on a 1 id pipe with a section of metal welded to the bottom creating a mounting flange and allowing you to adjust the width for two different trucks

Then flap section bolted in main tube

Edited March 24, 2011 by my malibu

[Bill_AirJunky]

I made one similar to how My Malibu described a few years ago only the pipe was straight. I didn't care for the fact that I had to have 2 stingers, one for the mud flaps, one without. So this one will be removable.

[martinarcher]

I made one similar to how My Malibu described a few years ago only the pipe was straight. I didn't care for the fact that I had to have 2 stingers, one for the mud flaps, one without. So this one will be removable.

If it were welded to a beefy collar I would think you could slide it on and off pretty easily. I bet a machine shop could make a 2" collar and weld a bar to it pretty easily. Use a square foam doughnut to make sure it stays nice and tight when you slide the ball mount into the receiver.

[Aquadisiac]

If it were welded to a beefy collar I would think you could slide it on and off pretty easily. I bet a machine shop could make a 2" collar and weld a bar to it pretty easily. Use a square foam doughnut to make sure it stays nice and tight when you slide the ball mount into the receiver.

MA,

That's pretty much the idea i'm leaning towards with the exception of the foam doughnut. I'm going the drill the square collar from the bottom and weld a heavy nut on it so there will be a heavy set screw (or bolt in this case) to hold it secure to the hitch receiver.

My biggest problem to figure out is dual tail pipes straight out the back... any ideas? Don't really want to change the tips.

Thanks

Chris

[cwkoch]

Since there's a big discussion going about how to build these, I thought I'd post up some pictures of my aluminum setup again.... I made this myself a few years ago.

Here's a pic without the boat attached. Ignore the dirty truck!

I'll try to snap some close up pictures of them at lunch time so you can see how they clamp onto the receiver hitch. These are removeable and just slide off the hitch, but you would need wrenches to undo them (they use a horizontal bolt underneath the receiver to clamp tight onto the hitch). I have an idea of how to build them so they can't be removed without pulling the receiver hitch out of the truck, but that would need to be experimented with. I use a lock on my receiver hitch so someone can't just pull them off easily at the launch, but with a pair of wrenches they could still come off.... I normally just unlock my receiver lock and slide the whole assembly out and lay it on the garage floor under the boat when not in use.

I know most people won't have access to building something like this out of aluminum, but I have a friend that is setup to do it, and I just talked to him about it, and he said he may be interested in building some of these if guys were interested in buying them.

Mine use a 1.5" square aluminum tube, and 2" angle that go down and clamp the hitch. The 2" angle is cut at an angle near the top to bring it down to 1.5" so it doesn't have sharp corners sticking out. I also welded flat stock under the tube for clamping the flaps to. If I were to build it again, I would try to use either all 2" stuff, or all 1.5" stuff. When I built this it was just out of some scrap we had on the rack in our shop. I think 1.5" may be preferable because the 2" requires a fairly long receiver hitch to clamp to (Alumastinger works well).

This setup is very strong, and I can easily step on it, midway out from the hitch on either side to use it as as step.

[Bill_AirJunky]

Nice Charlie,

So is the 1.5" aluminum solid or hollow?

[cwkoch]

Nice Charlie,

So is the 1.5" aluminum solid or hollow?

It's hollow tube. I welded square caps to the ends and ground the welds down and polished the whole thing. (It's due for a fresh polish though) My buddy that I talked to about possibly building some of these said he could maybe do the same thing, or else buy plastic caps to put in the end. Of course welding the caps on would be the really trick thing to do, but it adds more time which of course equals more money....

[martinarcher]

It's hollow tube. I welded square caps to the ends and ground the welds down and polished the whole thing. (It's due for a fresh polish though) My buddy that I talked to about possibly building some of these said he could maybe do the same thing, or else buy plastic caps to put in the end. Of course welding the caps on would be the really trick thing to do, but it adds more time which of course equals more money....

Looking forward to seeing a closeup of Charlie's hitch/clamping mechanism.

[Bill_AirJunky]

While I was in LA, I hung out with Ron of AirBoom a bit. He builds almost anything out of his tower tubing materials. He had a cool, low beach cruiser bicycle, all made from tower components. And a bar & bar stools, all made from 2" DOM tower tubing. And rather than welding up his tubing ends, he uses a custom made billet aluminum end cap. You can see one down by the crank on this bike:

I see them on Ebay

Several styles for 1 3/4" tubing here

Not sure if you can get them for square tubing. And we probably don't need 2" DOM for this, or even 1 3/4". But maybe this will get someone's creative juices flowin.

[Woodski]

I have one of his boom's and like it just fine. Use it mainly for footing.

[thtrog]

I cheated and hung my new Malibu flaps on a set of Rock Tamers that I had bought. They look great and I used a pair of tin shears to trim off right at 4.5" off the top. I would post a pic, but figured everyone knows what the look like. I also had a teenager run a red light yesterday afternoon and about took the rear axle out from under my truck.

I had supplies in the back for my son's Eagle Project we're working on. Good thing is the truck can be fixed and no one was hurt!

[D-GOOSE]

I'm looking at using a bracket to be mounted under the bumper. The clip hole can be large enough for a small lock. Plus removing them will be easy, quick and compact.

[cwkoch]

Ok. I snapped a bunch more pictures when I was home for lunch.

I was wrong on the material size. It is a 1.75” square tube, and 2” angles. If I had to do it over again, I’d try to use the same size material to avoid making the angled cut on the backside to blend the dimensions together. There’s also a 2” angle turned sideways above the hitch to space the bar upwards somewhat, so there’s no gap under the bumper.

To assemble, I clamped the two vertical angles to a hitch, and welded the spacer into those. Then welded that whole assembly onto the main bar. Then, welded the flat stock onto that (bead on the back side to hide it), and finally the end caps.

This whole thing will slip right down from the top onto a hitch that’s already in the receiver. One bolt on the bottom side is used to clamp it on. It could be stolen with a couple of wrenches, but I’ve never had an issue. To make it more theft resistant, you could drill another 2 holes under the hitch and use a long shank padlock across them. A piece of flat stock could also be welded across the bottom (to one side only), so that it couldn’t be slide off the hitch, but with it that way you would need to remove the receiver hitch from the truck to get it on and off. Of course a hitch lock is used to keep someone from stealing the whole deal.

I’ve also thought about welding something like directly onto an Alumastinger hitch, or maybe one of those larger adjustable height hitches.

By the way, in case you were wondering, yes, the exhaust pipe on the new Duramaxes WILL melt a hole right through the flap. This is pictured on a company truck that I’m currently driving, and I’ll need to attach a heat shield to the flap before I go get the boat out of storage. If I were to drive a Duramax full time, I’d end up putting exhaust on it that didn’t exit out the rear corner like that. I’ve seen systems that exit behind the tire, but straight out to the side like they used to. That should space the hot exhaust far enough from the flaps to keep from melting it. (I melted a hole in a poly flap last year on a 20 minute drive to a lake. It was all dripping down like plastic icicles off the bottom of the flap. Luckily, none of it was hot enough to blow away from the flap and stick to the boat!)

Pictures with it laying on my garage floor show a 2” drop Alumastinger hitch pinched in it, and the pictures with it on the truck show it slid down over the 4” drop Alumastinger hitch. It fits a tad better on the 4” drop since that hitch extends a bit further away from the truck.

And yes, the welds aren’t all that pretty, but they’re all hidden on the back side. It was my first time using an aluminum spool gun hooked up to our MIG welder at work. If my buddy makes up any of these, I’m sure he’ll be using his on TIG welder, and he knows how to lay down a pretty bead!

[cwkoch]

Also, for those of you getting ready to cut your new Malibu flaps off to the proper height, here’s what I would suggest you do. This comes from experience of trimming approximately 4 or 5 sets of flaps to length for different vehicles/boat weights over the past 5 or 6 years of having this exact flap setup…

1) Load the truck bed up heavy, like you’re traveling out of town for a long weekend.

2) Hook the boat up so you can see how much drop you’ll get from the tongue weight.

3) Trim flaps 2 or 3 inches above ground. They might drag momentarily after a large bump, but it won’t be bad. You just don’t want them dragging constantly if you load your truck up heavy for a trip.

With them trimmed to length for a heavy load like you’re going away for a weekend, they’ll be just a couple inches higher when you’re cruising to and from the lake around town without all the weight in the truck.

(For the record, I don’t mean to trim above the bottom, just measure to your bar so you can cut the top of the flap off at the proper height.)

[Bill_AirJunky]

Great stuff, Charlie. Thanks.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but the only thing keeping the flaps rigid is the fact that you have that bolt snugged down on the stinger? Have you ever had them shift?

How much does the whole thing weigh in aluminum? Just wondering if there is any benefit to making it out of steel instead. Would be less expensive, & easier to weld, but require paint/powdercoat. I already have steel angle iron brackets on the truck now (paddleboard rack).

[cwkoch]

Great stuff, Charlie. Thanks.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but the only thing keeping the flaps rigid is the fact that you have that bolt snugged down on the stinger? Have you ever had them shift?

How much does the whole thing weigh in aluminum? Just wondering if there is any benefit to making it out of steel instead. Would be less expensive, & easier to weld, but require paint/powdercoat. I already have steel angle iron brackets on the truck now (paddleboard rack).

Yes, Just the one bolt is all that clamps them on there. No, they're never shifted. They're a tight fit to begin with (but slide on ok), but that bolt really cinchs them down and they can't move.

I'm not sure what the whole assembly weighs off the top of my head, but I could weigh it. It's pretty light actually (and poly flaps vs. rubber flaps helps keep it a lot lighter). When I'm not going to be using it for a while, it hangs on my garage wall on those 2 nails... So, it's really not very heavy.

[dalt1]

I have the Rocktamers but no pics to show how they are mounted. If no one else comes up of close up pics of them, I could get a few shots later. They slide over the Ball mount similar to Charlies but the collar is thicker and four solid sides. It has lock screws tapped through the collar to cinch it to the ball mount (stinger). Since my ball mount is locked to my hitch, it can't be removed without considerable effort. I just pull the whole ball mount and Rocktamer setup out of the hitch and leave it under the boat in the garage when not needed.

[Pistol Pete]

Dalt,

I know that the square mount isn't going anywhere but,

Is it possible to slide the flaps all the way off the bars in a ramp parking lot?

[my malibu]

If you have a wrench yes they have one set bolt that attachs the bar to the mount

mine are glued on

Get some pics later tonight of the mount etc

[martinarcher]

MA,

That's pretty much the idea i'm leaning towards with the exception of the foam doughnut. I'm going the drill the square collar from the bottom and weld a heavy nut on it so there will be a heavy set screw (or bolt in this case) to hold it secure to the hitch receiver.

My biggest problem to figure out is dual tail pipes straight out the back... any ideas? Don't really want to change the tips.

Thanks

Chris

Not sure, but I would be sure the exhaust doesn't point right at the flaps. I bet they would melt before too long. I know our local exhaust shop is really reasonable with small exhaust changes. My bro has redone the exhaust on his truck 4 times just messing around and it amazed me how cheap they will weld up some pipe.

If I were you I would cut off the duals a couple feet behind the bumper, cut an angle into the cut off pipe and have it re-welded on so they each come off the rear corners of the truck at a 45. Kind of like what Charlie has going on on his black Chevy.

[martinarcher]

I'm looking at using a bracket to be mounted under the bumper. The clip hole can be large enough for a small lock. Plus removing them will be easy, quick and compact.

I wouldn't mind doing something like that since my truck doesn't have flaps in the first place. Where did you find those? Bill's link looks good, but they are only 22" long so I'd have to taper the flap which might not look the greatest.