RVer Frustrates Future Flap Failure

Our Motorhome has two types of flaps, the standard mud flaps behind each wheel in their respective wheel wells and the rear monster flap. Mud flaps are important because they restrain the small ballistic missiles your tires pick up and hurl back at the under-parts of your coach. This is especially critical when your radiator is down range. If you’re missing a mud flap you’re just asking for trouble in the form of a punctured radiator core. I was tooling down the RV road somewhere out in the middle of South Dakota when I pulled into a rest stop for lunch. (Is it just me or does this kind of stuff always happen in South Dakota?) Anyway, I got out to stretch my legs and do my routine walk around safety check and I saw this. This mud flap had just been installed a few days prior to this and somehow was sucked up onto the tires. The tires had worn the flap down making holes in it - no problem though, we were parked in an authorized smoking section. I replaced it at the earliest opportunity taking the added measure of securing the top and bottom of the mud flap to the wheel well frame with self tapping screws and fender washers. (Do you suppose that’s why they call them “fender washers”?) Now the mud flap stays in place and I haven’t had any further problems with it. Keeping you from flap failure - Jim Twamley, Professor of RVing