Door Awning Repair

[Toftime]

Yesterday the Awning over the door came apart. the springs in the tube shaft busted. Has anyone replaced there manual awning with one of the newer man or electric ones from A&E that come straight out?

[adonh]

Originally Posted by Toftime

Yesterday the Awning over the door came apart. the springs in the tube shaft busted. Has anyone replaced there manual awning with one of the newer man or electric ones from A&E that come straight out?

Is this the one you are talking about.


I never liked it, the metal hardware was rusty no matter what you did and it looked bad. I replaced it with the Dometic Oasis power door awning. Products - Dometic. It operates from a a switch mounted by the door and it also works with my remote for the main side awning. It looks much better and works great.

[Toftime]

That is the one I am talking about. Thought I would replace it with an electric one. How much trouble was it to do. Where did you get power from or run wires to?

[adonh]

Originally Posted by Toftime

That is the one I am talking about. Thought I would replace it with an electric one. How much trouble was it to do. Where did you get power from or run wires to?

I had my local RV shop replace it. The biggest issue seemed to be running the wiring to the Dometic power control located in the storage bay by the door. I had recently had the original side awning replaced including the power control box for the Dometic weather pro awning. The door awning connected right to this box with no issues and the remote was programed to work as well.

One other issue is where the old manual awning connects to the side of the coach down the side of the door. This awning was installed before the coach was painted. So when it is removed you will have 3 sets of rivet holes and white spots on each side of the door to deal with.

[Toftime]

I have been looking at that. Running the wires is going to be the hardest. And I saw that the fittings were put on before paint.

[adonh]

Originally Posted by Toftime

I have been looking at that. Running the wires is going to be the hardest. And I saw that the fittings were put on before paint.

They put rivets in the holes that held the fitting to the coach but that looked bad. Filling the holes and repainting is a big project. So what I did was cover the top holes with 2 small American flag emblems something like this one.
American Flag Car Auto Truck Grille Badge Emblem New | eBay

The ones I found may be a little smaller.

The bottom 2 holes I covered with small vent emblems something like this.

http://www.sfxperformance.com/parts/PAR61-0208.htm

Mine are round. All of these stick on with 3m double side tape and cover the holes and unpainted area. I don't have any actual pictures with me, but they look good and don't look out of place. I have been at Airstream rallies and have shown others that have this coach the new door awning and they didn't even notice them until I pointed them out.

[israndy]

Originally Posted by Toftime

Yesterday the Awning over the door came apart. the springs in the tube shaft busted. Has anyone replaced there manual awning with one of the newer man or electric ones from A&E that come straight out?

So did you replace the awning or repair it. Seems like it would be much cheaper to repair and then you have a use for all those rivet holes. Mine just came apart and I will need to decide myself. I am curious about repair. Must have been designed to be repaired, but I cannot even find documentation on getting it down.

-Randy

[israndy]

No response. I have looked everywhere for info on that awning. The product number from the awning is 958302426 and the model number is 85082EU.048. I even had to take photos of my own manual as the pdf of the manual cannot be found on the inter webs. There is no description of repair in the manual but it does talk about installation.

I finally decided to take the awning down as it kept unrolling and getting caught in the door. If you are looking to do the same, it just takes a ladder and a phillips and straight blade driver. Just undo the two phillips screws holding the awning extenders



Let them dangle, and I put the screws back to keep from losing them. Then the flat blade screws hold the bottom of the legs, let them dangle too. Then up the ladder, just undo the front screw that holds the awning in the rail. If I had put that screw back I probably won't have lost it already. Now back on the ground, grip the two arms and slide the awning out and the whole thing is removed from your RV.

If this is all you were looking to do you could be done. Maybe remove the clips and cover them up the way adonh did above. I didn't like the awning from the start and originally this was my only goal. One of the first things wrong with the RV when I first saw it was the rusted front leg. I don't know why the other leg is still pristine. I had it covered in duct tape to make it look silver. When the awning worked I deployed it to protect the door during light rain, but when I left and retracted it, all that collected rain dumped directly on me. Funny, yeah. The awning had to go.

But somehow working on the RV has made me want to put it back together in as close to original status as I can. Going to have to sand all the rust off the front leg and paint it, will be happy to have it finally cleaned. I have unriveted the awning from the legs by drilling out the rivets holding the legs on and am shopping for a replacement torsion spring(s). Should be cheaper than a power awning, but I am also thinking about wiring a switch since I have the passenger seat removed and the plastic cup holder piece off. No better time than now to run the wire incase I decide to go electric in the future...

-Randy

[israndy]

Oh, hey, PPL Motorhomes have a listing for the torsion springs for only $30 each. We will see if they stock them.

-Randy