Club 80-90 Forums

Hi

We are looking at used caravan store awning, the bag type, 2.5m length.
Because of our style of elvating room, our easiest method of attaching it to the vehicle when parked would be a figure of 8 gutter channel strip.

Has anyone done this before. Reason im asking is because the awning has the edge rafter poles which brace it of the van, and because of the drop of the bag, this loading point would then be sitting down below the gutter line, would the rafters not then be pushing on the side of the van about the top of the windows and affect/rub/foul the sliding door as it opens?

There do seem to be two easy fixes to this, one dont use the rafter and secure the awning with guy ropes at the end, or two put some sort of spacer block behind the awning where the rafters connect to keep it 2-3 inches off the van, thereby giving space to open and close the door. Im not worried about the awning bag touching the van, its designed to and not scratch, its the rubbing on the door thats im curious about.

Just asking in case anyone else has done this?

Additional question, and think I may know the answer to this, is the figure of 8 gutter strip secure enough to allow the awning to be transported in this position, or does it require to be taken down off and stowed via another means for transport?

many thanks
Alastair

I don't think the 'f8' stuff will be strong enough , when I had a poptop (Reimo) I had two length's of 'P' rail riveted to the van ,
one on the pop-top for transporting the store and using when the roof was down
and another attached to the vans metal roof , so when the roof was up I could remove the bagged awning from the pop-top and slide it into the 'P' section on the steel roof.
Loads of messing about and the bags cord got damaged after a while making swapping over a pain.

Now depending on your roof you maybe able to attach it to the steel roof via some 'P' section or even some 'C' (if you can get it) and flip it under the poptop as you lower it down . This works on devons.

Another more expensive way is to get some gutter mount for the fiamma wind out awning , attach the 'P' rail to that.

The other (a lot more ££) is to get the Fiamma wind out with gutter mounts.

hope that helps , not that clear put gives you some idea