Awning channel on the side of a caravan

Oblio
Oblio Forum Participant Posts: 18
edited January 2015 in Caravans #1

Hi

I have just bought a Kampa Motor Rally Air 390XL awning for use with my motorhome. I tried it out on Friday for the first time and came across a problem regarding threading the awning to the channel in the front of my Fiamma canopy.

Firstly its diffocult to thread (I'll try some PTFE spray for next time to ease the friction).

But secondly, due to its weight it looks to put too much pressure/stress on the canopy arms which are not designed to take downward weight. Kampa suggest rolling the canopy out to make it easier to thread however it was a right so-and-so getting the canopy
back in its housing with the weight of the awning attached.

Therefore the solution would be to thread the awning whilst the canopy is in its locked position. However the thread end looks to be fairly tight and I would doubt if I could thread it unless the canopy was slightly unengaged from its mounting base (which
I will try next time).

A solution might be to install a running rail like the ones on caravans. So - and to get to the point of this thread - how are the mounting rails fixed to caravans? Are they glued/rivetted/screwed? Is this something that I could get fixed to my MH easily
enough?

My thought process is to get one fixed on the MH above the canopy (the awning will definately have enough height to cope witth this) therefore not touching the canopy at all...leaving that for use on trips where we dont want the awning up etc.

I would be grateful for some advice on the rail mounting to the side of my MH.

Thanks

Graham