how necessary is a rock guard?

Yes, they are useful. They keep the glass from cracking or breaking. The fiberglass can be painted and then decorated. Very handy to have.

To answer your question yes they can be ugly, Yes they can be painted, Yes they can be disassembled and a different material inserted, Yes they serve as a nice shade, Yes they protect glass from flying debris, Yes they help stop rain from blowing in when towing, Yes the also serve to keep rain out when windows open while camping, and Yes I think all units should have one.

Our trailer came with an ugly oversized rock guard. I was planning to reinstall it for all of the reasons bigbill stated. But now that we are aluminum parts adventurous we're making a new one. When you start thinking about it, there are so many ways to make a rock guard interesting design wise rather than ugly. The panels could be painted, have a sand blasted pattern, use a custom designed sticker, an aluminum panel with a pattern etc.

What if you paint the two ribbed ends the same dark color as the trailer, and replace the center with a piece of 1/4" lexan... then you could see right through the trailer and still be protected?

I think I'll paint it silver or add some polished trim to embellish it, maybe a funny emblem in the center and when it's parked, roll out a matching awning to cover it that has scalloped edges that overhang.

Here is the back of the trailer...I didn't take the picture, sorry its burry, but you can see, there is just no way we will be able to see through to the road in this one.

I have a growing appreciation for my shasta's design...I'm going to miss it's good points!

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I am not a stickler for original exteriors when they are originally ugly!

I posted my paint plans and now it's my avatar, and I am hoping the paint scheme has a more classic canned ham look instead of 70s rv. I hope the aluminum isn't anodized so I can polish it.

That guard looks very clean and a vast improvement over most, but I think we will clean and still paint ours silver and jazz it up so it looks like a fancy option vs a sad piece of armor. I have access to lots of stainless steel automotive moldings, emblems and stuff like that.

I appreciate the advice, I really didnt want to keep it on there, but I was thinking about what you guys said and then I thought about my husband's tires, he always gets rocks caught in the wide treads and then at high speeds they fly out like bullets under his truck. So, since we want this trailer to be ours for many, many years, I want to take good care of it.

I am now considering mud flaps on the truck and other guards for the front of the body now, I can make some sheet metal pieces & paint them to match that can stand off the body with Shasta wing like spacers.... something like vintage wagon air reflectors on the back of the wagons only for the front.... I don't think I could do diamond plate like I've seen before.... I have a need to customize.






I love old cars, old houses, old furniture, old people and of course, old trailers.