Wednesday, June 1, 2016

One awning to cover it all

Next up on the list...  the awning.

We went full size on this thing. All thirteen feet of it. Figured the cargo area of the van is 13' long, might as well have the awning go the full length.

I've seen many vans where the awning stops short in the rear by a couple feet. I understand why (at least I think I do... to allow the rear door to fully open with the awning out), but I didn't care. I'd rather have the extra awning coverage than the ability to swing the door 270 degrees open with the awning out.

Anyway, as for the install, it was a family event. Headed over to my parents' place. Not only for the help from dad, but also their wonderfully flat driveway. Setting up the awning on my driveway with a 6 degree slope (10% grade) driveway would have been dangerous, if not simply impossible. I think the full awning and hardware weighed around 90 pounds. It was a challenge to handle.



Setup for the day. Many, many times up and down the ladders.


Mounts... mounted.  ;)  Quite pleased with the Fiamma setup. Definitely fine tuned from years of Ducato sales in Europe. Mounted quite solidly on the oddball little rack mounts on the roof. Add in a good layer of Sikaflex adhesive per instructions, and they're not going anywhere.


Then it was time to hoist the awning into place.  At least that's what it felt like. Would've been easier with an overhead crane.

 
Yes, that is a dent in the awning. Just another reminder to fully check packages before accepting shipment. Especially big, heavy, expensive stuff. It shipped in one super hefty and reinforced box, and it had some minor tears in it. Looked fine. Even pulled the awning out a bit the same day to look at it. Didn't notice the dent until the day we put it on the van.  Ah, well...

 

And the first deployment. This will work quite well.


This...  this is big.  And its a good thing.




 

 Closer inspections, all looks good.


Overall, I really like the awning. The downside is that I haven't used it much in the 8 months since installing it. Not much at all. But we kinda knew that would be the case. Many of our trips we're not in a place to set up the awning. But the ones that we are...  it will be nice. Very nice.

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