Awning Rail

[Biggmixx]

Greeting all. I am looking for guidance regarding the awning rail attachment on my 30' Argosy. I have the shell detached and the inner skins removed. The awning is 26 feet long or so. When I bought the trailer the rail was on it and I had bought the awning and attached it to it. Fast forward to a few later and I am at the situation I am currently at.

In the first picture is the back of the screws that hold the awning rail on. Some of them were loose that I could unscrew them from the back side. Others were firm but lacked sealer. There were a couple that looked like they were starting to dimple out guessing from being pulled by the rail. I don't know if they come attached from the factory that way. I see a blue scribed line on the inner skin so I am guessing that it might.

So now that I have them exposed, I should address the fastening. I know I should at the very lease pull them back out and seal them. But should I remove then and then buck rivet the rail on? Are they the right fasteners to do the job or is it intended to be removable? I will have to source bigger buck rivets since the screws are #8 or #10. Should I going either screws and rivets, put an aluminum backing plate on the inside to make the attachment stronger? Or will that make it too strong that a wind on the awning will tug so hard it will rip the skin? I am usually careful when deploying the awning but there is always that one time.

Dave

[57Vintage]

I suggest a reinforcement on the inside of the shell and either tap the reinforcement or use a rivnut so removal won't affect reinstalling. I didn't think ahead to reinforce the inside, so I just drilled out for rivnuts. I shimmed the outside with washers to compensate for curvature of the shell.

My bottom awning bracket bolts into the perimeter square tubing I added to the frame to eliminate having the subfloor sandwiched between the shell and the frame.

[Aerowood]

Originally Posted by Biggmixx

Greeting all. I am looking for guidance regarding the awning rail attachment on my 30' Argosy. I have the shell detached and the inner skins removed. The awning is 26 feet long or so. When I bought the trailer the rail was on it and I had bought the awning and attached it to it. Fast forward to a few later and I am at the situation I am currently at.



In the first picture is the back of the screws that hold the awning rail on. Some of them were loose that I could unscrew them from the back side. Others were firm but lacked sealer. There were a couple that looked like they were starting to dimple out guessing from being pulled by the rail. I don't know if they come attached from the factory that way. I see a blue scribed line on the inner skin so I am guessing that it might.



So now that I have them exposed, I should address the fastening. I know I should at the very lease pull them back out and seal them. But should I remove then and then buck rivet the rail on? Are they the right fasteners to do the job or is it intended to be removable? I will have to source bigger buck rivets since the screws are #8 or #10. Should I going either screws and rivets, put an aluminum backing plate on the inside to make the attachment stronger? Or will that make it too strong that a wind on the awning will tug so hard it will rip the skin? I am usually careful when deploying the awning but there is always that one time.



Dave

I removed my awning, rail cleaned it up and installed new "buck rivets" approximately every two inches. I also sealed the rail down..the installation of the awning rail brackets with sheet metal screws can also be improved.

Sent from my Lenovo YT3-X90F using Airstream Forums mobile app

[Biggmixx]

Thanks guys. I will go and look to see which solution will work best while I doing more work on the shell today.

Dave

[tjdonahoe]

13 31’ Classic…my drip rail was buck riveted…the wind,while traveling tried to unroll the awning in the center….it has broke all the rivets..I drilled out all the holes and installed clecos in all the holes…and reriveted the awaking rail. Using 5/32 shaveable Olympic rivets….

[Biggmixx]

That is one of the things I am considering. If make it too hard to come off, will something like an awning blowout just cause more damage? It looks like it came from the factory with just the sheet metal screws spaced about 12 inches apart. It has stayed on for 40+ years and looking through the awning thread I don't see a whole lot of issues with the rail. Since I have access to both sides I don't think I need to go the Olympic route.

I do see with the current set up a failure waiting to happen. Screws that are no longer holding tight and I can remember being able to see a sliver of light under the rail with the awning deployed. So I am probably do a combo of what Aero and 57 have done.

I am going to add more fasteners like Aero did on his but I am going to make them removable with an idea that 57 provided. I am thinking that if I made it permanent and did have a blow out or a breaking of the rail channel, then I wouldn't have the same access I do now. I also have existing holes that are rather larger than the standard rivets so I would need to address that too. I don't doubt the rivets alone would be strong enough, heck they use them on airplanes.

For the sake of some possible future where I will need to remove the rail, I am going to double up the fasteners. I am going to replace the screws with a machine screw and use Rivnuts. I think I have used something like that before in the service but I think we called them nutserts. I do remember issues of them not always holding tight and spinning which would make it a bummer once I close it back up. I do believe I have a solution for that too.

Thank you guys for the ideas and the comments. When I work on that part of the project I will post what I did.

Dave

[Mollysdad]

Make absolutely sure your rail is perfectly parallel to the awning roller.
I think mine came from the factory with the back maybe 1/2" down from the front. Minor problem? Well the roller hits the rail in the back and stops it, meaning attaching the travel wheel is almost impossible. Since I'm not moving the rail, I think the solution is to shorten the arm by 1/2" and move the travel wheel to match. I'm taking a lot of time before I drill any new holes through.
It's counter intuitive and even all the "experts" at the dealer were stumped.

Everyone wants to move the roller up to match the travel wheel, but it won't go up without a lot of strain on the canvas strip.

[Biggmixx]

Thanks for the tip Mollysdad. I will defiantly keep that in mind. I had the pleasure of using the awning in its current set up for several years before I started the rebuild. I am lucky enough to be able to reach those travel wheels standing from the ground. That might change though since I added new axles that will probable add to the height.

I used the information provided with the awning when Zip Dee sent it. I also had the help of the previous holes left from when the original awning had been removed. I have a picture of very dirty awning rail that shows it pretty straight all the way down based off the rivet line above. You can also see a couple of screws that were loose enough that I twisted them out from inside the shell.

Dave