Make a Cheap Offroad Window Protector
Make a Cheap Offroad Window Protector
When going offroad towing a caravan or camper trailer you need to have some sort of rear window protector fitted or you risk an expensive breakage.
We made a cheap window protector for our ute canopy rear window. We’ll be doing the Birdsville and Oodnadatta tracks plus a load of other outback gravel roads towing a van beginning late next month and this is the first time we’ll be out that way with the canopy on. To protect the back window from flying stone damage Amanda and I made up a protective cover for it. Read on to find how to make a DIY rear window protector on a budget.
Making The Back Window Protector
We used some corflute, a yoga mat, a bit of silicone and some gaffa tape. All up cost was about $30.
We made a template out of newspaper and traced the outline on to the corflute. We then cut it out of the corflute using a sharp stanley knife. It would have been an easier job if we hadn’t picked a windy day to trace the outline on to the newspaper!
We had to cut a few holes in it to allow for the plastic bits on the window (used to fit the hinges etc) and for the lock handle. These were a bit tricky to get in the right place but we just kept doing back and forward with the newspaper template. The holes were cut out using a retractable thin bladed box cutter type knife. We used the thinner bladed knife as the wider blade on the stanley knife made it hard to cut out the round bits.
After cutting the corflute to shape we siliconed the yoga mat to it and left it to dry overnight. We placed a few weights on top to hold it flat. We used good old roof and gutter silicone.
When the silicone was set we covered the whole lot in strips of gaffa (with cloth in it) tape to protect it. It fits to the back window with gaffa tape around the edges stuck to the glass. Here’s hoping it does the job. I reckon it should.
Update – Our DIY Window Protector Worked!
We completed our trip and the DIY window protector job actually worked really well. After getting home and having a good look at it I found a number of places where chunks had been taken out of it by flying rocks. I reckon if the rocks were going fast enough to take a chunk out of the window protector then they would been a fair chance of breaking the window. All up it was a good thing.
