Out with old in with the new awning....

[2yax2go]

Josie and I purchased a new Fiamma F45S 10’awning last week for our 16’ scamp. The old Dometic Catalina 2500 had seen better days and it was impossible for Josie to operate it. So we did a lot of research and soul searching and decided on the Fiamma. We ordered the new awning from Panther RV in Washington State and had it shipped free to South Carolina and to top it off we saved several hundred dollars.
The old awning was taken down in about 2 hours and went to its new home the next day.


Then the fun began. After receiving the awning we checked the measurements, ordered the custom roof brackets from a local welding shop and picked them up two days later. The brackets are 3/16 aluminum and bent on a heavy duty break we used the measurements as posted by Joy and Donna, the only change I should have made was to have all three made 3” wide otherwise the other dimensions are good.



I plugged the roof holes from the old brackets with J B WELD epoxy and cleaned the roof area where the new brackets were to sit. I then measured up from the seam trim to get a straight line to work from and then laid out the new locations for the new brackets drilled through the roof and installed the new brackets using stainless ¼ x 1 ¼ bolts, nyloc nuts and fender washers. We also used the flat brackets supplied with the awning attaching them to Joy and Donna’s custom roof brackets. We then lifted the awning to its new perch and tightened a few more bolts to the brackets we did have to cut the bolts supplied by Fiamma for their brackets from 2” down to ¾” to work with J and D’s brackets.



The installation took about six hours over two days with two people and now Josie can open and close the awning on her own. All in all a successful project. Next.

[NEWFISHER]

Fiamma makes a great product. You should be happy with it and great job on the install!

[2yax2go]

Mrs. 2yax here.

I just wanted to add that the new awning is wider than the one that came with the trailer. Now we can leave the door open in the rain without worrying about wet rat fur and it will also shade more of the bedside window.

Another nice feature the way this rolls out is that we can have it only partially deployed if we're in a tight campsite and still have a bit of shade on those soon to be hot sunny days. (especially since we are taking off for our Westward-Ho Madventure across the country in June.)

And, I actually like the shades of gray on the awning with the red Scamp letters and striping. It was the only choice at the sale price from Panther. I was going to live with it anyway, but am pleased that I like it.

I am a happy camper (pun intended)

Josie