We are planing to travel to Tibboburra and beyond with our new off-road van and would like some suggestions as to how we can protect the van from stone/gravel damage thrown up by the vehicle. When we took our last van to Tibboburra the paintwork was sand blasted and we wouldn't like it to happen again.
What have you found to be the best solution? I have seen rubber sheets on the back of the tug and protective shields on the A frame. I'm sure there would be other ways. Comments would be much appreciated.
Hi , full width mud flaps will help and also made up a frame with shade cloth on it and mounted on the front of the trailer , same could apply to the caravan but i am sure you could bye something , only a thought
I bought two of the truck Mudflaps that have spray suppressant on the front. Cut them in half horizontally and put them between two lengths of flat steel and bolted them to a bracket just behind the rear wheels.They ended up full width of the vehicle and were just above the ground at the airbag ride height. Made a big difference to the stone chips on the Suzuki we towed behind us. Much better than the stoneguard we used to have on the A frame of the flat towing bracket.
Why pay about $500 + fitting when a simple mudflap right across the vehicle about 50mm from the ground works fine. Have had this system - cost about $50 for rubber and <$10 for mounting bar - for 7 years, heaps of off road work and no stone chips, or sandblasting of A frame due to dust.
I'll post a better photo ASAP, but one attached gives you an idea.
Let me get this straight. You have an off-road caravan. You're planning to go to Tibooburra, but you don't want stone chips.
Good luck with that. All I can suggest is leave the van in the shed.
Seriously though, all the mud flaps and fringes won't stop the stones hitting underneath the tug and van.
The worst damage is done by vehicles approaching from the opposite direction as the vehicles pass.
My windscreen is proof.
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20ft Roma caravan - Mercedes Benz Sprinter - SA-based at the moment. Transport has no borders.
Management makes the decisions, but is not affected by the decisions it makes.
It's interesting that a number of caravan manufacturers sell so called 'off-road' caravans, yet they don't provide any front protection for the van from stone and gravel damage.
Do the people who build these 'off road' vans ever travel in the areas they say their vans can go?
That's not the case with all manufacturers of course, the serious ones do make an effort to provide front protection.
The best van front protection also results in the best protection for the back of your vehicle, to avoid stone and gravel damage to rear doors and windows..
Any vertical surface, or close to vertical surface on a van will result in stones and gravel bouncing forward onto the vehicle. The result is paint damage and broken windows.
The vertical barriers with a mesh (often shade cloth) are somewhat effective but they get in the way and the mesh gets battered and goes into holes after a short time - unless the barrier material is some type of bouncy chain mail mesh.
For over twenty years I've towed campers and trailers fitted with angled front plates.These plates deflect stones back down to the ground. Anyone who has played billiards or snooker knows about rebound angles.
The plates work very well - they take a battering and any paint gets blasted off. The plates are made from 16 gauge galvanised steel - a scrub with a scourer and another coat of paint now and then has done the job for over twenty years.
This is our 22 year old trailer that has been many places on unsealed roads, towed by five different vehicles in that time. You can see the driver's side stone deflector plate.We've never had a worry about stones bouncing back onto the vehicle.
The lesson learnt from this 22 year old model is the plates need to be slightly larger, which they are now.
In this picture you can see where stones have got past the inside of the plate - another 50mm wider fixes it. (As with the paint on the plate, the reflector at the top is 'sacrificial')
A job I have on the go is to fit similar plates on our caravan. As with many other vans it needs changes to adequately handle unsealed outback tracks.
The plates are larger than in the previous picture and are similar to these ones, which are on a Vista Crossover.
We towed a Vista Crossover through deserts and along many unsealed roads a couple of years ago and didn't have any problems with stones or gravel.
