Fitting a Roof Awning to a Campscout

[Dave225]

Today I fitted a 4 meter F65S Fiamma awning to our Globecar Campscout. The following comments describe issues I found and my techniques to complete the job. Otheres may have different ideas but I hope it will help anyone thinking of doing the same.

 

Firstly the HSE bit. You need 2 tall’ish blokes, or 2 well built young ladies willing to lift 35 kg 8 feet into the air. “2 stepladders are required and these should be tall enough to allow easy access to the top of the van. Remember this is 8 feet off the ground. An option is 2 trestles at waist height. Take everything slowly and easily. Do not hurt yourself.

 

There are 2 main parts to the job. Firstly the brackets need to be installed on the roof and secondly the awning has to be lifted on to the brackets.

 

Before you start loosely assemble the clamping brackets and th awning clamping bolts to the brackets. These all have lock nuts so you can put them on finger tight.

 

Do a dry run with the brackets. The F65 S awning has 3 brackets and these should be installed at the extreme front and rear and middle of the roof. The brackets should be installed so the clamping bolt for the awning itself is on the inside for each end bracket. The middle bracket has a choice of fixing points on the Maxi van as there is no central point. I chose the mounting point above the rear of the sliding door as i hoped there would be some vertical pillar support at that point. Once the brackets are loosely in place climb at the rear of the van and look along the brackets to ensure they are in line. Unfortunately I did not have a 12 foot straight edge so using eye was my only option. Once you are happy with the location then the brackets can be installed. These need to bedded down with Sikaflex 252 adhesive and this stuff is horrible to work with. It is like sealant, gets everwhere and will stick. I have heard some people have no bothered with it but I feel it provides a supplementary fix to the roof and I do not wish the awning to come off at any time, so I persevered with it. My idea was to install the clamps loosely to the brackets as i found gett6ing the nuts on the bolts difficult in the confined space with my thick fingers. I smeared a strip of Sikaflex along each of the 2 surfaces as described and then put these back on the roof. You will find Sikaflex will ooze out everywhere even if you have been mean on putting it on and although it does come off with white spirit, you will find it sticks to everything, including you and every time you touch something, there is a splodge of Sikaflex. All you can do is swear and wipe it off as best you can. Once the brackets are in place start tightening them down but keep looking along the eye line to ensure they are still in a straight line. You will also find the Sikaflex stops you getting the clamping bracket parts located as easily as when dry, and you need to keep checking that the slot is actually around the roof pin. Once you are happy with all this, tighten then down. Fiamma do not give any torque settings but advise you not to overtighten. My method is to use a 6 inch spanner and hold it halfway down. That I feel is sufficient torque to get a good tighten without over doing it. Then you need to install the rubber strip between the brackets. Again the instructions from Fiamma are totally confusing as they show 2 separate locations for this strip. I elected to use the location nearer the rear as I felt the front one would prevent the awning locating properly as the rubber strip will not compress sufficiently. Again this strip will not go on straight unless you are lucky, but get it as good as you can. Once you are happy wit all this, and double checked your brackets are still aligned, you can move on to installing the awning. Some people I have heard have skipped the rubber strip as they felt is caused other problems with possible damage. This is a choice for each owner. I will give it a go and see how it works.

 

With your buddy lift the awning out of its box and lay it on the trestles, making sure the front is pointing to the front of the van, not like me and have to turn it round. Lift the awning to the top of the step ladders. You are halfway there. Flatten the box the awning came in and put in on the roof behind the brackets. Lift the awning onto the roof and lay it on the cardboard. Take a breather. Lift the awning forward onto the brackets and ensure the grooves have located in the right slots. If you have aligned the brackets correctly, all 3 will be locating the awning. Check the awning is located fore and aft as you want it to be and also check behind the awning that the front and rear brackets are covering the labels marked ‘support’. Ignore the middle one as this is not essential. The awning will slide easily so you can get it in the right position. Now tighten the awning clamping bolts a bit at a time with each bracket. Again there is no torque setting so I used a 4 inch rachet socket (10mm) and tighten till I was just nipping the nuts. Give everything a damn good shake to see if there is any movement. Re-check the awning nuts. Remove the cardboard, climb down and admire your handiwork. Clean up all spots of Sikaflex from the roof and sides of the van and install the locking brackets to the rear of the awning. Remove the plastic cover and warning strip from the awning. Go to the supermarket and buy some cold beers, return, re-check the nuts and open the beers and admire your work yet again.

 

Now others may have different ways of doing this, but I hope that it will give people encouragement to have a go.