Let me offer some advice that will help you to have a good experience with your ZipDee awning. 1st, My ZipDee awning did not "come with" a new rail as suggested above. They will certainly sell you a new one when you buy your awning, but if your old one is in good shape, you can save a few dollars by just reusing your original. your choice. 2nd, if your interior skins are off then buck riveting your awning rail on is the best practice for achieving leak free rivets. Adding the rail later means using olympic rivets which are more prone to leak if not carefully sealed. if your interior skins are in, then that is the only choice and yes, you can add it at any time.
Hear are some additional tips: When they tell you to measure the length for your awning they will tell you to measure from center of the rivet to center of rivet where the awning will be installed. I measured this down at the floor level, but get a couple ladders and some help and measure this up at the height of the awning because my ribs were 1/2" narrower up at the top than down at the floor level. That made mounting the lock down clamps very difficult. luckily the interior skins were not in yet so I was able to add additional structure where necessary to make this work. 2nd , They suggested that I make a template of the exterior curve of the trailer so they could get the main arm angles bent perfect. I chose not to do this. Bad idea. Maybe its because mine is a 55, but I figured they had made enough of these that it would be right. They were close, but close is not good enough. They need to be exact. Bent too much and the awning head hits the trailer before it will engage in the lock. Not enough and the arms will not make it far enough to get to the locks. If they tell you to make a template of the side of your 81, then do that. 3rd. My overlander has a window just forward of the door that goes all the way to the front rib. In my case, the support arm mounts to the left of the main support arm and is in front of the window, so you can not open that window unless the awning is deployed, or you would have to remove the support arm if you wanted to open that window with the awning rolled up. Not a big deal but you need to know that if you have a window next to either the front or back rib, then the window is not going to open with the awning rolled up.
These are things I learned when installing my ZipDee a few months ago on my
1955 overlander. Some will be the same for you while others may not apply. Hopefully it will make your installation way easier than mine.
Aaron
Linear Mode
